


Introduction to Impressionism

by kimpernickel



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Profanity, Secret Surprise, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 10:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 42,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4603671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimpernickel/pseuds/kimpernickel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beatrice hopes sophomore year will go well. She has a better roommate this go-round. Her roommate's <em>boyfriend</em>, though...well, Beatrice isn't sure how she feels about him. Or what the weird dreams mean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This here be my new AU, way more AU (and much shorter) than the last. I will try to update this as frequently as I can, but as I am starting my fall semester as a college senior (?!?!?!?), I cannot make any promises.

Beatrice was hanging up her clothes in the closet she claimed as her own when the masculine voice emanated from behind the door.

“Oh, the door’s already open…”

Beatrice spun around to greet whomever it was entering her dorm room. In stepped a boy with long thin legs and ashy brown hair, wearing a green t-shirt and long blue jeans. _Jeans_? In this heat? On move-in day? He struggled to carry the box, and once his eyes met with Beatrice’s, the box dropped to the wooden floor with a boisterous _thud_ that wouldn’t make the room below too happy. They stared at each other. Him, stunned to the point of freezing. Her, confused for multiple reasons.

“Are… _you_ Sara?” Beatrice asked as she cocked her head to the side, not about to judge her roommate, especially not after the train wreck who was her freshman year roommate. Except, in accordance with a gracious alumni donation’s stipulation, McHale Hall was the only single-sex dormitory on campus, in addition to the most ornate, and the gender-neutral living community was in Stone Hall. Nor was the person in front of her the person in the Facebook profile pictures. Not that Beatrice spent much time studying her sophomore year roommate’s Facebook photos. Or spent that much time on _Facebook_.

“Um, I, uh…” he sputtered and rubbed his hands together. “Uh, no! No—I’m Wirt.” His eyes traveled to the ground, the tips of his ears a rosy pink, until he hurriedly picked up the box he dropped. He set it on the empty bed across from the one Beatrice covered with black and white sheets. He stood straight as if he belong in a soldier’s marching unit. “Sara’s…coming any second now.”

Beatrice nodded and returned to hanging up her clothes. “Okay then, Wirt.” What kind of name was _Wirt_? Maybe it was a nickname. An unfortunate nickname. She pretended not to notice how he remained at the empty bed, transfixed on her. The goose bumps on her neck straightened up, but she continued to slide jeans onto hangers and hook them to the metal rod in the narrow space.

“Here it is! Room 312!” another voice entered into the room, decidedly female. A short girl, black-haired and dark-skinned, burst into the shared space and dropped another box to the floor, this time intentionally. _This_ was the girl she saw once in a while on her Facebook news feed. Unlike Wirt, she was dressed more appropriately for the late August weather and moving in, with a pair of shorts and a heather gray tank top. “ _Phew_.” She smiled and held out a hand to Beatrice, which Beatrice shook. “Beatrice in the flesh! Nice to finally meet you! I’m Sara.” She pointed a finger to Wirt. “That’s Wirt. Which, by the way,” she glanced over at him. He towered over Sara by nearly a foot, but with the slouch in his shoulders and the timidity in his eyes, Wirt cowered in the corner.

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping me move in?”

“R-right,” Wirt jumped and scurried out of the room. Not even two seconds after, he stuck his head back in the doorway. “Umm, how will I get back in?”

Sara placed her hands on her hips. “Wirt, _please_ , it’s move-in day. You’ll get in just fine.”

“Oh, yeah.” He ducked his head away.

“Don’t mind him,” Sara joked once the door slammed behind him. “He’s…well, I love him and all, but he’s kind of a dork.”

Beatrice shrugged. After the hell that was freshman year housing, she hoped this housing arrangement would work, and she would make an effort to be nice to her new roommate, but she didn’t particularly care about Sara’s relationship with her boyfriend. “Is your family coming up?” Beatrice changed the subject.

“Oh, yeah, they’ll be here to help unpack. What about yours?”

Beatrice shook her head. “They dropped me off early and helped me unload, but dipped out. My brother has an important track meet later today, and they want to make it in time.”

Sara smiled and bobbed her head up and down, utterly intrigued with whatever Beatrice had to share about her family. Even if she faked it, she convinced Beatrice that Beatrice was interesting. Maybe Sara majored in theater. “Oh, so you have a brother!” Sara replied. “That’s cool. I have an older sister in grad school now.”

“I have four brothers and two sisters,” Beatrice corrected.

Sara’s eyes widened. “Jesus Christ. Are you the oldest?”

Beatrice nodded. Seven children and two parents wasn’t too crowded when you lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere.

“Power to you,” Sara smiled again. “In the last five minutes we’ve known each other, you sound totally sane, so props to you for that.”

Beatrice laughed. She liked Sara already, but it wasn’t hard to be a better roommate than Mena. The Zodiac Killer could be a better roommate than Mena, as long as he didn’t murder Beatrice.

Wirt returned to the room about five minutes later with a second box. “Your mom wants you to help with the mini-fridge,” he announced to Sara. Beatrice ignored how Wirt kept stealing frightened glances at her. He was about to collapse with the weight of the box in his arms and his supposed fear of Beatrice. What was his deal? Beatrice was known for her resting bitch face, but Sara hadn’t picked up on it. Did Beatrice just have a flashing neon sign above her head that read _BITCH_ , and it was only visible to a few people?

Sara groaned. “She couldn’t get you to do it?”

Wirt’s eyes focused on Sara now. “Uh, my hands are a little busy at the moment.”

“That doesn’t answer my ques—” Sara stopped and pinched the space between her eyes. “Ugh, _fine_. Drop that one under the bed.”

“I have my own unpacking to do—”

“Put that under the bed, and let’s go.”

Wirt obeyed, and Sara pulled him on his wrist towards the door. His shoulders slumped over as a frown dragged at the corners of his mouth. Beatrice pretended not to look at them, but she had to a second or two later. “Oh, I’m almost done with unpacking my clothes, and I’ll probably leave in fifteen minutes to do some errands,” she called to them before they could exit.

“No problem!” Sara sung. “If you get back in time, maybe I can convince my parents to let you join us for dinner.” She waved her hand in a manner that indicated _us_ meant Wirt would join them as well.

Beatrice’s stomach curdled. “Oh, um—”

“Actually, I don’t need to convince them because I know they’ll want to meet you. They act as if it’s freshman year all over again.”

Was it intrusive to mooch off of her roommate and her parents this early in the school year? Not that Mena had a problem with it. But the thought of eating campus food soured Beatrice’s stomach even more, and she needed to save her cash for errands. In surrender, Beatrice agreed.

“Cool. See you later,” Sara waved goodbye as she led Wirt out of the room. He waved weakly to Beatrice with a visible uncertainty of whether or not he should’ve. His eyes stayed to the floor, and he exited the threshold of McHale 312.

* * *

Beatrice’s first stop was the campus bookstore to purchase a course-pack her French professor specially prepared for the class, and then to the nearby grocery store to pick up some snacks and drinks she forgot to pack. The entirety of those errands took less than forty minutes, but she spent the rest of her time in a listless stupor at the nearby mall, window-shopping and lusting after items just out of her broke college student budget. She caved in and bought a cinnamon sugar soft pretzel the size of her face, and stuffed it in her mouth as she sat on a bench to people-watch. None of this was planned, but she wasn’t ready to go back to her new room and burden Sara as she, her family, and Wirt unpacked. Especially not when Beatrice was finished with her own unpacking. She dug out her phone and tapped on the screen to call Lorna, but stopped once she remembered Lorna’s new position as an RA for freshman girls. It was why they couldn’t room together for sophomore year, and why Beatrice chose “random selection” for a roommate.

She waited another two hours for the initial frenzy of moving in to whittle down before returning to campus and McHale Hall. She parked her junker car in a lot about a five minutes’ walk from McHale, and strolled along the main campus walkway. Students passed each other, talking about their summers and their semester classes. A few parents lingered about with sing-song reminders to their children to separate whites from colors (freshmen) and to call them once in a while (upperclassmen). All of campus was lit and aglow, not just in the lampposts lining the main campus walkway, but with the promise and buzz of a new academic year. The buildings received a fresh coat of (cheap) paint over the summer, and the landscapers had slogged away during the hot and humid days to bring back the postcard-perfect green lawn and assortment of flowers. This year, it was tulips. Last year, it was daisies.

Back in McHale Hall, Beatrice climbed the two flights of stairs to the third floor. She found her daily exercise; her freshman dorm had an elevator, and that year, she lived on its top floor. At the top of the stairwell, right before she opened the door leading into the hallway, the door busted open. On the opposite side stood Wirt, with inflamed cheeks and beads of sweat on his forehead. Beatrice chose to interpret this as from moving in, not her presence.

“Oh, I-I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”

“It’s fine,” she dismissed with a sharpness that suggested it _wasn’t_ _fine_. (But it was. It totally was.) She brushed past him and, before she headed to her room, Beatrice frowned. She looked over her shoulder to Wirt, who remained anchored at the stairwell door. His face was less crimson, and more of a pink.

“Aren’t you coming to dinner with Sara’s parents?”

“No. I have to do my own unpacking,” Wirt replied.

“Oh.” Beatrice stifled the sigh of relief.

“Yeah.” He scratched his head. “So, uh…I’ll, um, see you around?”

Beatrice shrugged. “I guess.”

She turned around before she saw Wirt’s reaction. Beatrice tightened her grip on the French course pack, and she strode down the hallway to room 312.

* * *

Sara’s parents took the new roommates out to a downtown Mexican restaurant, known for the inexpensive prices and tasty food. (And for not carding underage college students.) The cordialities proved awkward at first, but by the time Beatrice’s chicken empanadas arrived, they had exchanged plentiful amounts of introductory information.

_“Where are you from, Beatrice?”_

“Oh, out of state. My family and I live on a farm close to the border. Campus is closer than our state capital.”

_“Sara’s sister Lindsay is in grad school to become a special education teacher. Do you have any siblings?”_

“Six siblings. I’m the oldest.”

_“What’re you majoring in? Sara’s in the engineering school.”_

“Oh, uh, I haven’t decided yet. I’m just finishing off a few general education classes. I think my parents would like if I were in the agricultural school, but I like geography, so, we’ll see.”

_“You’ve met Wirt, right? He’s from the same town as us; he’s been a friend of the family since, what…third grade? He’s a good kid.”_

“Umm, yeah, I met him. He seems…”

“You can say weird,” Sara teased after swallowing her spoonful of chicken tortilla soup. “We all know he’s weird. But he’s just shy, really. He’s like that around everyone, so don’t take it personally.”

Beatrice smiled, but held back from agreeing that her roommate’s boyfriend was weird. That can’t possibly be the best way to get on Sara’s good side. Beatrice answered the rest of the questions thrown at her, while listening to Sara’s parents talk about their daughter as if she wasn’t alive and sitting next to Beatrice. Beatrice finished her empanadas and orders some fried ice cream per her roommate’s parents’ insistence, and before long, the two were dropped off near McHale.

Once the SUV drove away, Sara spun around. “I am _so_ sorry about them. They just drone on and want to know _everything_ about you.”

“Hey, I got a free meal out of it, didn’t I?” Beatrice grinned, eliciting one from Sara as well. “But honestly, I felt kinda bad for you. Your parents didn’t let you get a word in except like, three times.”

“Eh, they’re not overbearing. With my sister in grad school and all, they like to project to the whole ‘always our baby’ thing on me. But whatever, I know how to use it to my advantage, and if it means a free meal for me and my roommate, who am I to deny such luxuries?” They stepped inside McHale Hall’s lobby, where a few students loitered about, already looking for the first party of the semester. “If you don’t mind me asking, though, why’d you do random selection for your sophomore year? I was planning to live with my roommate from last year, but she ended up being accepted into some year-long study abroad program in Russia, and my scholarship says I have to stay on campus for all four years.”

“My roommate was _the worst_ ,” Beatrice emphasized. They hiked up the staircase. “And I mean _the worst_. I put up with it because she was barely in the room, but when she was, she ate my food without asking, and would turn our room into her personal art studio. Once I got a call from one of her boyfriends saying she was getting her stomach pumped after some crazy rager, and I stayed with her the whole night in the ER. She didn’t even thank me, just kept eating my food.”

“Damn.”

“ _Yeah_. I don’t know what ever happened to her once the spring semester finished, and I don’t care to find out.”

Sara opened the door at the top of the third floor stairwell. “You should talk to Wirt about your old roommate problems. He _hates_ his roommate.”

Beatrice’s ears pricked up. Not that she cared about Wirt, but the oddity struck her. “Wait, he’s rooming with the same roommate from last year, but he doesn’t like this roommate?”

Sara nodded with a knowing and amused smile on her face. “Yeah. Jason Funderberker. He’s not Jason, he’s Jason _Funderberker_. The funny part is that he went to high school with us, and he asked Wirt to be his roommate for freshman year.”

“Why didn’t Wirt say no?”

“Because Wirt felt bad and is a complete pushover. If you just ask him to tie your shoes, he’ll do it.”

Beatrice recalled Wirt helping Sara move in earlier that day, and how his protests all failed to some capacity.

“By the way,” Sara mentioned right as she unlocked their door with cute whale nametags, “Wirt’s probably going to visit a lot. If that ever bothers you, just let me know, because I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable with him around. This is your room as much as it is mine.”

“Oh,” Beatrice said, “okay.” She frowned, but only when Sara couldn’t see her. Wirt was odd and quiet, but he wasn’t _bothersome_. Not _now_ , when classes had yet to start. She ignored whatever creeping sensation danced upon the back of her neck and rolled onto her bed, glad that she was finished with her unpacking, and her side of the room was decorated. “Are there any other things I should know about?” Beatrice asked. “You don’t have a secret stash of human eyes lying around, do you?”

Sara snorted and affixed a poster to the barren wall on her side. “No, I prefer to take the hearts of my murder victims. But I do snore. And I’m an early bird. I set my alarm for seven-thirty every morning except on the weekends. What about you?”

“I can stay up to three a.m. doing absolutely anything except sleeping. And if we ever have trouble, I have connections with the Res Life people. One of my friends is an RA.”

“Well, good to know,” Sara chuckled.  

Beatrice lied still on her bed and chatted with Sara some more, with occasional texts exchanged between her and Lorna.  Sophomore year looked brighter with every second.

* * *

Sara shuffled around the room as softly as she could. Though she never opened her eyes, Beatrice woke up and shifted in her warm cocoon of sheets. Sara prepared herself some coffee from the Keurig machine, and the door closed. The _whirr_ of the air conditioning unit rattled as Beatrice drifted back into a state of drowsy unresponsiveness.

Beatrice woke up _again_ some time later, the room still and motionless. She checked the time on her phone—ten-fourteen-a.m. She moaned. Today was the Sunday before classes, and with no plans for the day, no farm chores to attend to, she could sleep in until noon, or way, way later—

A knock on the door disrupted her, and Beatrice groaned. She clambered out of the bedsheets and moseyed to the door, groggy and slow. The knock returned before she made it to the door. “Just a sec,” she grunted bitterly. Beatrice expected Sara at the door, in case she accidentally locked herself out, but instead, Beatrice was greeted with the sight of Wirt.

“Oh um…Beatrice, hi, uh…sorry…um, did I wake you?” Wirt stepped back a little, and his whole face flushed.

“ _Yes,_ ” she snapped.

“Oh. S-sorry.” Wirt fidgeted in his stance. “Is…is Sara around?”

“No.”

“Oh. D-do you know where she is?”

“ _No_. How’d you get into McHale?”

“I, um, w-waited until someone opened the front door…but, okay…I, uh…well, Sara hasn’t been answering her phone, but she leaves it on silent a lot, and…” Wirt trailed off; he must’ve noticed the unamused scowl on Beatrice’s face. _Resting bitch face._

“Sorry for w-waking you. I guess I’ll…I’ll go now.”

“Bye.”

Beatrice shut the door in Wirt’s face and melted back into her sheets.

* * *

The Tuesday back was just like the Monday—filled with promises for the semester but otherwise light and peaceful. Little homework and reading needed to be done, more time for students to readjust to college living and meet up with friends they hadn’t seen since April. Beatrice took full advantage of this downtime. When else was she going to have it in the semester?

“So what’s your new roommate like?”

Beatrice sat on her bed and swung her legs back and forth. Lorna typed an email on her laptop and swirls around in the office chair Beatrice bought at Goodwill for eight dollars. “Is she anything like Mena?” Lorna added after a flurry of typing keys.

“It’s only Tuesday, so everything’s been okay so far. I think Sara and I will get along. She’s pretty nice, and we set ground rules. Mena never set any rules until something I did inconvenienced her.”

Lorna smiled her sweet, dainty smile. Beatrice was convinced Lorna received her RA position because of how patient and gentle she was. Why she befriended Beatrice during freshman orientation and stuck it out for the long haul, Beatrice didn’t know. “Well that’s good,” Lorna said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be your roommate.”

“Lorna, _no_ , you deserve the RA job,” Beatrice shot back. Lorna, who worked hard and never asked for much in return, _deserved_ her own room with a reduced rate, _and_ a stipend to go along with it. Her aunt and guardian was unmarried and worked two jobs to put Lorna through college. If anyone was to have that job, it was Lorna. “Trust me, I think it’ll be fine between Sara and me. She actually _talks_ to me and picks up after herself. Her _boyfriend,_ though…”

“Oh, is he over all the time?”

“Sort of,” Beatrice griped. “He hasn’t _stayed_ over, and he’s not rude or anything, but he’s…” she struggled to find the word for it, but the door opened. Sara stepped in, with Wirt right on her heels.

“Hey!” Sara greeted with a smile. “Sorry, I didn’t know you had company, but we’re just stopping here to drop some things off.”

“No problem,” Beatrice dismissed. “Sara, this is my friend Lorna. Lorna, my roommate Sara.” She paused. “And, uh, this is Wirt,” she added with little concern, pointing to the silent beanpole behind Sara.

With her bright smile and neon-yellow t-shirt, Sara personified sunshine. “Nice to meet you!” She looked back up to Beatrice. “Hey, we’re heading to Klein for dinner. Do the two of ya wanna join? I hear they’re serving some _actual_ good food tonight.”

Beatrice’s stomach grumbled on cue; her phone’s clock read five-fifty-three p.m, and save for two of her mom’s chocolate chip cookies, she hadn’t eaten since one-thirty. She mulled over the offer. Sara wanted to grab dinner with her sometime before the first week was over, but their schedules hadn’t allowed for them to do so yesterday. Now was a perfect opportunity, even with Lorna around, but Wirt…well, Beatrice wasn’t sure if she could sit through a dinner and make awkward small talk with Wirt. The day before, he spent three hours in Sara and Beatrice’s room before heading back to his room in Wallis Hall. Beatrice, who read a book on her bed, listened to the conversation and watched Wirt’s mannerisms in the corner of her eye. He stared at her funnily and stumbled over his words, and the few times he _did_ speak in coherent sentences and in a clear voice, he was too much of a stereotypical English major hipster. He quoted dead white men’s poetry as responses, and could never take a lighthearted joke at his expense. At least he didn’t wear the thick-rimmed glasses.

“Thank you, but I can’t. I promised the other RAs in Cross that I’d join them for the first week pizza party, so I guess now is a good time for me to head out.” Lorna closed her laptop and placed it in her backpack, then stood up and waved goodbye to everyone. As Lorna headed out the door, Beatrice bit her tongue at Wirt’s eyeing of her friend.

“So, how ’bout you? Care to join us for some food hopefully worth all that money we spend on a meal plan?”

Beatrice forced a smile and a “Sure” before grabbing her student ID holder.

At dinner, Beatrice chomped away at her pork barbecue sandwich. No wonder the food was so good; it wasn’t the _school_ ’s food, but a nearby vendor’s advertising their barbecue catering. She shoveled at her macaroni and cheese as Sara talked about how she was trying to readjust her schedule to fit in one of her remaining gen eds.

“You should take Munro’s introductory poetry class,” Wirt offered. “It counts as one of the Arts and Literature Application classes, no prerequisites, it’s being offered this semester, and Munro is a _great_ professor.”

“Maybe,” Sara said half-heartedly, “but I kinda want to take this intro to theatre stagecraft class that Maggie was telling me about. You get to help make sets for the semester’s shows.”

Wirt scrunched his nose. “They’re doing _The Music Man_ as their fall musical.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Beatrice asked once she finished swallowing her mac and cheese.

Both Wirt and Sara drew their attention to her. It was the first time she spoke since sitting at the table with her barbecue-themed plate of protein and carbohydrates. Sara was unfazed, but Wirt was caught in headlights, utterly appalled that Beatrice had spoken. Not _angry_ , just…taken aback.

“Uh, y-yes,” he stuttered. “Of all the musicals to choose from, they chose _The Music Man_? It’s not a good show. The music is annoying and terrible.”

“I didn’t know you were a musical theatre snob,” Beatrice chided. “Maybe a _literary_ snob…” _And did I just say that out loud_?

“My _mom_ is,” Wirt replied with a tremble. “She’s a drama teacher at a private school, and she basically required me to go see all her students’ shows. As if that wasn’t enough, because I did band in high school, I was frequently recruited to play in the pit band for those musicals.” He rolled his attentions back to Sara. “And _now_ , Maggie is recruiting _me_ to be one of the extras just because I play clarinet.”

Beatrice didn’t realize she had rolled her eyes. _Literary_ and _music snob_.

“Are you gonna do it?” Sara inquired.

“Yes, I am, because I can never say no to anyone.” Wirt propped his elbows on the edge of the table and threaded his hands into his hair. “I’m gonna go insane in November. Not only will it be all that work professors shove on you in November, the winter concert, and work, but I’ll have ‘Gary, Indiana’ stuck in my damn head well until finals.”

Sara chuckled and eyed Beatrice with a smirk on her face. Beatrice bit into her barbecue sandwich and looked away.

Back in McHale 312, Beatrice hoped she and Sara had shaken off Wirt. Instead, he walked into the room with them, no intention of leaving. Beatrice sighed and grabbed her math notes and textbook. “I’ll be in the study room,” she grumbled as she stomped out into the hallway.

* * *

The first week of classes passed without much ado, and the first weekend was another lazy three nights and two days on a virtually empty campus. Beatrice spent most of it reading outside, propped against a tree, sipping on lemonade and eating the remainder of cookies her mother packed for her. Sara was out most of the weekend and had invited Beatrice to her outings, but Beatrice always declined. Now, with the second week of the semester already at a Thursday evening, Beatrice read her geography textbook in her bed, one leg swinging off the edge. Sara typed up a physics lab report on her laptop.

“Oh _shit_.”

Beatrice looked up from the pages of little text. “What’s wrong?”

“I promised Wirt I’d meet him at the library at nine when he gets off his shift in the stacks for a last-minute Whiterock bakery run, and it’s nine-thirty now. Shit _shit shit_ ,” Sara slammed her laptop closed and scampered about the room in search of her ID card and wallet.

At hearing Wirt’s unusual name, Beatrice sat up. She hadn’t seen Wirt ever since last Tuesday. Sara even stopped mentioning him. What happened to him being over all the time?

“Hey, uh…he hasn’t been around in a while,” Beatrice piped up. After two weeks, she was comfortable in calling Sara her friend and not just her roommate. Sara had, after all, shared her minor alcohol stash with Beatrice right before they began their evening homework sessions. If anything went down between Sara and her boyfriend, Beatrice wanted to let her roommate know that it was okay to talk. Although Sara went about every day with a spring in her step and a grin on her face. “Is everything okay?” Beatrice asked. “With Wirt, I mean.”

“Yeah, he’s fine. Why d’ya ask?”

“Well, I mean, you said he’d be around all the time, and he hasn’t shown his face in a week…and this _is_ the first time you’ve talked about him since last Tuesday.”

Sara froze in her steps. “Oh, _right_. Um…yeah, Wirt’s, well…”

“You can tell me.”

“He’s…he’s intimidated by you.”

Beatrice straightened her back and arched an eyebrow. “ _Intimidated_? By me? I’ve hardly said anything to him.”

Sara grimaced. “Well, I don’t know, you always acted weird around him.”

Beatrice’s jaw dropped. “Me? He was the one who kept staring at me and fumbling around!”

“He thought he was making you uncomfortable—”

“I mean, he _was_ , but I don’t have an issue with him—”

“If he made you uncomfortable, why didn’t you tell me?”

Beatrice huffed. The direction this discussion was going was clearly not a good one. Beatrice gathered her thoughts before continuing. “It wasn’t _that_ big of deal. I didn’t want to cause conflict between the two of you.” She slumped her shoulders and ran her fingers through her hair. Just the second week of the semester, and already she and Sara were having a conflict of their own. “He can come over. I don’t mind that much. Really.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sara soothed.  “It was Wirt’s idea to stop coming over. D’ya wanna join us and you can let him know it’s okay?”

Beatrice shook her head and frowned. “I have a geography quiz to study for tomorrow.” It was a half a lie; though the quiz still loomed over her, she didn’t _need_ to study for it. She never mentioned how she wasn’t ready to see Wirt just yet, not after hearing that she intimidated him. “But, uh…could you bring me back a blueberry scone if they still have one? I’ll pay you when you get back.”

Sara smiled and nodded. “See ya later,” she said, and bolted through the dorm room’s door.

Beatrice sat in the narrow, crowded room, suffocating underneath the revelation. Why did this upset her more than it should have? She hardly spoke to Wirt, and _yeah_ , she could be abrasive…but why did it hurt her to know her roommate’s boyfriend was so afraid of Beatrice that he stopped visiting his girlfriend altogether?

She sighed and resigned to her textbook. When Sara returned, she tossed Beatrice a blueberry scone. “Buy one get one free,” she noted with a smile, and went back to the lab report on her laptop, pretending their previous conversation never happened.

* * *

_“Shoot. You think maybe we should’ve asked him for help?”_

_She looked down from the branch to the two boys. One wore a red cone hat, the other a tea kettle upside down on his head. Two children, just like her deal demanded. Two boys, both young but one of them older than the other, with the promise of growing older and stronger. Two children separated her from the scissors she needed, and now there were_ two _, right in front of her!_

_“Maybe I can help you,” she chirped. The two boys spun around and looked up to face her. “I mean, you guys are lost, right?” she added._

_The oldest boy, the one with the red cone on his head, gasped with widened eyes. “What in the world is going on?” he screeched, and slapped a hand to his face._

_The little boy took it upon himself to answer the question. “Well, you’re slapping yourself, and I’m answering your question, and—”_

_“No, Greg, a bird’s brain isn’t big enough for cognizant speech.”_

_“Hey! What was that?” This kid didn’t know her, and he just insulted her intelligence? She didn’t make fun of his cone head, or the stupid cape on his shoulders._

_His spine shot up as he looked at her and rubbed his hands together. “I mean, I’m just saying you’re weird, like not normal.” He was just digging his hole deeper and deeper. “I-I mean, oh my gosh, stop talking to it, Wirt.”_

_Oh,_ now _her feathers ruffled. “_ It _?”_

_“Uh…” he stuttered, but whatever poor explanation he was about to whip up went forgotten with the light of a lantern casting golden light and darkened shadows upon the scene below._

_“What are you doing here?” cried the Woodsman. She froze in her spot on the branch, but the Woodsman wasn’t looking at her. His eyes fixated upon the two boys. “Explain yourselves!” he demanded of them._

_She turned away and spread out her wings. “And I’ll see you guys later. Bye.”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today was my first day of classes for the semester, and I decided to treat you all to the next chapter! Enjoy!

Upon checking her phone the moment her eyes opened, Beatrice woke up on Saturday morning, ten minutes past eleven. She was alone in the room, nestled in her sheets, and Sara’s bed was neatly made, almost as if she never slept in it. Except she had; Beatrice went to sleep somewhere around two o’clock in the morning, and Sara waltzed into the dark room maybe twenty minutes later, right as Beatrice was caught in a state of half-sleep. Beatrice groaned as she stared at the hospital-white bedroom ceiling. Yesterday evening, she _promised_ herself she would get up before noon and go to the library to study for her two upcoming exams in French and math, but her bed was _so warm_ and her sheets were _so soft_ …

Her full bladder and the growl in her stomach, however, convinced her to roll out of the cotton burrows and actually heed to her self-promises.

After dressing herself and helping herself to Saturday brunch in Klein, Beatrice trekked from the dining hall to the library with her study materials in tow. She wasn’t looking forward to spending five hours in a study cubicle, working on statistics problems and conjugating French verbs into the _plus-que parfait_. It was such a lovely late summer’s day, not too humid and clear skies, and Beatrice was going to spend nearly all of it _inside_. She wished club soccer had a game today, but practice had only commenced this past week, and the first intramural game was two Saturdays away. Maybe if she stayed on task and took minimal breaks, then she could treat herself to some cheesecake and convince Lorna to sit with her on the lawn for the remainder of the afternoon. Assuming Lorna wasn’t on duty this weekend.

Beatrice entered the library and headed straight for the stairs to the second floor. This early on a Saturday, the library was just as empty as the rest of campus (save for brunch; Saturday and Sunday brunch brought out the hungover crowd). She stepped onto the middle of the staircase when a figure bumped into her.

“Oh, sorry,” they apologized in unison. Beatrice wasn’t planning on looking up to see who it was, but the voice elicited a yelp from him, and Beatrice’s whole chest constricted.

“B-Beatrice!” Wirt stuttered. “I-I-I’m sorry, I—”

Against her better judgment, Beatrice turned around and faced him. He stood on one of the lower steps, so for once, she was taller than him. “Don’t worry about it,” she replied. “I wasn’t looking where I was going, either.”

She was about to turn away when Wirt spoke up, probably against _his_ better judgment. “So, uh, how’s it going?”

“Fine, I guess.” She tried to sound as relaxed as she could, but she cringed at the forced nonchalance in her tone. “And you?” she added for extra reassurance that she _wasn’t_ intimidating.

“Uh…I’m good, I think. I’m working right now, actually.”

“Oh, yeah, Sara mentioned you work here.”

“I don’t usually work on Saturdays, but someone needed me to cover their shift, and I can always use the extra money, so I—”

“Why are you intimidated by me?”

Both Beatrice and Wirt stiffened. She didn’t _mean_ to ask it. Not like this, in a library staircase without the buffer of Sara to keep both of them in check. (Mostly Beatrice. She feared her lack of a filter would flare up, and she would say things she never meant. Even to Wirt, whom she barely knew.) But the opportunity presented itself, and it was better to talk about it instead of pretending the tension between them never existed.

“So Sara told you about that?”

“I kinda forced it out of her.”

Beatrice was certain she saw the hint of a smile on Wirt’s mouth and the flash of amusement in his eyes (a deep, amber brown…with purple circles underneath), but even if it had been there, it disappeared before she could entirely register it.

“You don’t remember, do you?” Wirt asked.

She cocked her head to the side. “Remember what?”

Wirt’s eyes fell to the stairs separating them in distance and height. “I thought so,” he muttered, almost to himself. Beatrice raised an eyebrow at him, and, as if he remembered she was standing in front of him, he sprung back to life. “W-we were in the same orientation group.”

Beatrice crinkled her nose. “I think I would remember someone with a name like _yours_ ,” she spat. _Shit_. She sent out a telepathic plea to Sara, wherever she was, to teleport within an instant and be in this stairwell with the two of them.

Wirt remained unfazed, or, at the very least, put up a good façade. “R-right, well, I dunno…I thought you remembered.”

“Is _that_ why you kept staring at me like I’m some known psychopath at large?”

“No…well, maybe…”

“Did I ever _do_ something to you?”

Wirt contorted his face into an expression of discomfort as he searched for an answer. He was taking too long. “ _Did_ _I?_ ” Beatrice griped once more, her voice a tad higher.

“No…not exactly. But, you have been snippy…”

Beatrice scoffed. “Snippy? You’re the one who just stares at me as if I’m not welcomed in _my own fucking room_.”

“It wasn’t like that.” Wirt stepped further down the staircase, his stare breaking from hers.

Beatrice imagined the toe of her shoe kicking against Wirt’s groin and her running away to study, but it was too early for her blood to boil, and for going into a study session with a sour mood. And kicking her roommate’s boyfriend in the groin was _not_ diplomatic (just another reason to never become an International Relations major). She took a deep breath and descended down two steps. She was still higher up than Wirt, but the eye level was more even than before. “If I intimidate you and said certain things in a certain way, then I’m sorry. But you kept staring at me and it was really uncomfortable, and I didn’t tell Sara because I don’t want to make her choose between the two of us. She’s known you longer, anyways.”

Wirt looked up at her with hooded lids. “I didn’t meant to make you feel weird. I’m sorry about that. I was just wondering if you remembered.” He paused. “Orientation, that is.”

“Thanks,” Beatrice said. They stood in the stairwell, the buzz of fluorescent lights the only noise to fill the space. She ran her hands up and down the straps of her backpack as if they would provide her with _something_ to say, _something_ that could end this discussion on a satisfying note. Why didn’t Wirt just leave already? Wasn’t he on the clock? And she _really_ needed to conjugate those verbs and work on those problems—

Wirt interrupted her train of thought with his usual awkward tone. “So, are you studying today?”

She nodded out of politeness, an air of tautness still amongst them. “I’m trying _not_ to put off all my work until Sunday night, but we’ll see how long that keeps up.”

“A good place to study is in the far left corner on the second floor, next to the Economics section,” Wirt suggested. “The WiFi is practically nonexistent in that corner, so you won’t be tempted to procrastinate online.”

“Okay, thanks.” She glanced up the staircase and made a few steps towards the first step. “Well, uh, don’t wanna keep you from earning some money,” she concluded. “So, uh, see you later.”

“Uh, yeah. Have fun.”

They turned away from each other and went their separate paths—Beatrice up, Wirt down. On the second floor, Beatrice considered taking her usual seat near the bathrooms, but, at the very last second, she opted for the cubicle in the far left corner on the opposite end of the second floor. Someone was already sitting near the bathrooms, and Beatrice needed her space. It _definitely_ had _nothing_ to do with Wirt’s suggestion.

* * *

“I thought you’d still be here.”

Beatrice stared up from her statistics problems. Her eyesight and head swam as she adjusted from staring at small, handwritten numbers to the more open space of bookshelves and the tall, gangly form of Wirt. “You took my advice after all,” he spoke at a low volume.

“Yeah, it’s been helpful. I didn’t think campus WiFi could get any shittier, but I stand corrected.” She smiled at the end of her sentence, but it fell once she realized how weird it felt to smile at him. She might’ve resolved the odd conflict between her and Wirt, but they weren’t chummy. They had one degree of separation in Sara, and that was it.

“Well, I’m afraid to tell you that we’re closing now.”

Beatrice frowned at him. Five p.m. already? She checked her phone—four-fifty-three. “Oh. I…I must’ve...” she sighed and leaned into the back of the chair. In nearly five hours, she took one break (excluding her three trips to the bathrooms) to buy herself a snack from the vending machine and close her eyes for a few minutes…but that was around two-thirty. “That was an intense study session,” she mumbled to herself. When was the last time she studied like _that_?

“So, uh, what’re you gonna do for the rest of the day?” Wirt asked her as she packed away her textbooks and notes.

She shrugged. “Probably have dinner and see if I can hang out with my friend if she’s not on duty this weekend.”

“Lorna, right?”

Beatrice stared at him, unsure why that struck a chord within her. Wirt met Lorna last week, and yet, he sounded as if he knew Lorna for years. “Yeah,” she affirmed.

“‘Lightning may strike no place twice, yet the retentions of yesteryear come twofold,’” Wirt mumbled. Beatrice’s brows creased together, and once Wirt caught sight of her, he gulped. “Hey, d-do you wanna join Sara and I for dinner? She’s stopping in about fifteen minutes, and then we’ll be heading off campus for something to eat. I’m sure Sara won’t mind. You’re her roommate, after all.”

* * *

At first, it was just one Saturday dinner.

After waiting outside the locked library for ten minutes making awkward small talk about their classes and professors, Wirt and Beatrice were rounded up into Sara’s pick-up truck. She drove to a greasy spoon Beatrice heard about from many other students, but never found the time to visit herself. No wonder it was such a popular student destination; the prices were inexpensive, and the food was far better than any of the Saturday evening on-campus options. She ordered herself a tuna melt and a cup of soup, while Sara ordered her “usual”—a bowl of chili with a baked potato—and Wirt got a roast beef and cheddar sandwich. Beatrice sat across the booth from Wirt and Sara, and for once, it wasn’t _too_ awkward to be around him.

“This is good,” said Sara after she sipped her lemonade. “The two best people I know finally at peace with one another.”

“I’m one of the best people you know?” Beatrice arched an eyebrow. “You must have low expectations for those qualifications.” She chose to talk about that instead of her and Wirt ‘at peace with one another.’ They weren’t _at peace_ , not really. It was just an understanding, just an agreement for Sara’s sake.

Sara smiled. “Uh, you let me eat your mom’s cookies, and put up with me waking up so early in the morning. If I’m sharing my alcohol stash with you, then you’re _in_.”

“Wait, you’re already sharing alcohol with her?” Wirt objected. “I’ve known you since we were _eight_ and you only started to share your alcohol with me when we were seventeen.”

“Because you were such a dork about underage drinking until then,” Sara retorted with a chuckle in her tone. “It wasn’t until that party at Gordon Cronk’s house when you finally took that stick out of your ass long enough to try something, and you just went loose.”

Beatrice stifled the snort about to erupt from her nose. She scoured her mind for the best image of a drunk Wirt after one too many shots of vodka or cups of beer, but the scene eluded her, save for one scenario of Wirt passed out on a couch, unaware of the crowd of people around him.

The rest of their dinner passed pleasantly, much to Beatrice’s surprise. As their food arrived and their drinks refilled, she learned more about Sara and Wirt’s shared experiences in their suburban hometown, a stark contrast to the rural life Beatrice underwent as she grew up. The three of them exchanged stories about their freshmen year.

“Oh, yeah, Sara tells me you don’t like your roommate,” Beatrice mentioned.

Wirt grimaced. “ _Funderberker_ ,” he growled.

“He couldn’t possibly be that awful if you’re rooming with him a second year. My roommate last year was terrible.”

Wirt’s eyes broadened, and he shook his head slowly. “No one can beat Jason _Funderberker_ as the worst person in the world.”

“Wirt has a… _checkered_ history with Jason Funderberker,” Sara chipped in.

The subject somewhat died after that, with Wirt refusing to elaborate on the matter. Beatrice entertained them with her unfortunate tales of Mena in hopes Wirt would share his own bad roommate stories, but he kept mum. Rather, the conversation topic changed again.

At times when she wasn’t entirely engaged in the conversation, Beatrice sat back and watched Sara and Wirt interact. They were a cute couple, Beatrice decided. They played upon each other’s attitudes. Sara’s relaxed, “go-with-the-flow” behavior complemented Wirt’s skittish and quiet demeanor. She never teased him when he went off on his poetic tangents; however she put up with it, Beatrice envied her roommate for it. Beatrice certainly wouldn’t be able to do so.

But they didn’t ignore her. Refreshingly, they weren’t cutesy and saccharine, and Beatrice’s role as the third wheel wasn’t as obvious or awkward as before. As the three talked throughout dinner and during the drive back to campus, Beatrice wondered if she could consider Wirt a “friend,” not just her roommate’s boyfriend. Not _now_ , with the memory of their apologies still raw in their minds, but maybe _soon_. Despite his penchant for quoting dead white men’s poetry and his doormat personality, he was…nice, for lack of a better word.

“Alright, well I better head back to Wallis,” Wirt said a few hours after the three of them returned to McHale 312. Beatrice discreetly checked the time on her phone—eleven-forty-two p.m. The last time she remembered checking her phone, it was eight-twenty-something. “Jason _Funderberker_ is probably at some frat party,” Wirt continued, “and I want to be fast asleep when he comes back and pukes all over the floor.”

Beatrice contorted her face at the thought.

“Eww, has he done it again since that one time last year?” Sara asked.

“No, but I’m not taking any chances. I’m not stepping in that again.”

“Oh, eww,” Beatrice reacted involuntarily. At least Mena never did anything like _that_.

She met Wirt’s eyes, and they stared at each other for a second or two. The uneasiness from the previous encounters returned, her chest bubbling with every passing millisecond. He smiled, but only a little.

“It was nice hanging out with you, Beatrice,” he said.

“Uh, thanks,” Beatrice answered, unsure of what else to say. “Same,” she added.

Wirt turned away from her to open the door. “See you guys around,” he said with a wave. Both Beatrice and Sara said their farewells and watched him leave.

The door closed behind Wirt. Beatrice leaned against the pillows on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. Not what she expected for her Saturday evening.

She heard soft snickers from Sara’s side of the room. They rang in her ears with an unsettling tremor within her. “What?” she muttered as she turned onto her side to face Sara.

Sara ceased her giggles, but her smile never went away. “Nothing. He’s a dork, but I love him.”

* * *

The following week, Beatrice found herself eating dinner with Sara and Wirt on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (Tuesday and Thursday she ate with a few of her club soccer teammates after practice). Lorna joined them on Wednesday, and they met a few of Sara and Wirt’s other friends in passing. After dinner, Wirt would retreat to McHale 312 with Sara and Beatrice, only to leave a few hours later once he remembered that he still had homework to complete. On Saturday, Sara and Wirt invited Beatrice to see a movie at the university’s Dollar Cinema with them. Sunday, the three of them had brunch and walked about the campus without plan or direction.

And the week after that, it was more or less the same routine. The only major change in schedule was on Wednesday, when Lorna and Beatrice went off to the library to study for the geography class they shared (or rather, the same professor, but in different sections).

“Sara’s lucky,” Lorna said once Sara and Wirt were out of earshot.

“Why do you say that?” Beatrice asked.

“She has Wirt.”

“Do you… _like_ Wirt?”

“No, but I can see what she sees in him. He’s kind and sweet, and he’s cute…”

Beatrice scowled. Wirt, _cute_? Wirt was _far_ from cute. His nose was crooked and his ears stuck out like opened window shutters. “I can’t think of him like that, so let’s stop talking about it.”

* * *

“So what’re you doing tomorrow?” inquired Sara at Friday’s dinner. Nugget night was always a riveting success amongst the students, and Sara needed to speak at what was almost a yell. “We’re thinking of going to the mall tomorrow. Not that we can buy anything, but it’s something to do.”

“I think you mean _you_ were thinking that,” Wirt groused.

Sara ignored him. “So, whaddya say? And after that maybe we can do a Netflix marathon?”

Beatrice shook her head and finishing chewing her chicken nugget. “Can’t. Club soccer’s first game of the semester is tomorrow. And then I’m going to a club soccer party tomorrow night.”

“Oooh, I didn’t know you party.”

“I don’t usually, but the club soccer people are pretty cool, and it’s not too far away from campus.” Sara paused and flicked her eyes over to Wirt, who shoveled some mac and cheese into his mouth. “Hey, why don’t we come see your game tomorrow?” she suggested. “It beats walking around a mall when you’re too poor to buy anything.”

Wirt swallowed his spoonful of mac and cheese and nodded. “Yeah, uh…that’ll be fun.”

Beatrice’s cheeks warmed. _Because I have friends who want to see my game_ , she reminded herself. _Not for anything else. I have friends who care about me, that’s all._ Lorna _couldn’t_ go because she would be volunteering for the prospective student day activities. “If you want,” she said. “It’s at noon on the intramural field. If you do come, I recommend you wear a ton of sunscreen. The bleachers are directly in the sun.” She bit into another chicken nugget.

“I think she’s talking to _you_ , Wirt,” Sara giggled.

“I’m not _that_ pale,” Wirt grumbled.

“No, but we don’t want a repeat of the Great Lobster Summer.”

Wirt moaned at this, his face buried within the palms of his hands. Beatrice laughed along with Sara, but she stopped as quickly as she started. It was an intrusion on an inside joke, an experience the two of them had long before either of them met Beatrice. She had no reason to be jealous of such friendship, let alone a long-term relationship, but Beatrice couldn’t help the sour aftertaste within her.

* * *

From the far corner of the field, Beatrice saw them walk through the intramural field’s gate and head over to the bleachers. How Wirt survived in those khakis in the lingering summer heat and humid was beyond her. In her sort-of uniform of shorts and a t-shirt, Beatrice sweated gallons before the game even commenced. Sara waved to her, and she waved back. Wirt lifted a hand and dropped it a second later.

She stopped thinking about them as she played, running about the field and kicking the ball. During the breaks and the intermission, she stayed focus on hydrating herself. But once the game finished and she chugged a bottle of cold water from the club soccer’s cooler, she ambled to the bleachers and greeted her friends. Sara handed her another bottle of water and smiled. “Congrats! I think you’ll need this.”

“Thanks,” Beatrice accepted the bottle. It was warm from being outside in the sun, but she opened the cap and downed as much of the clear liquid as she could—just over half of the bottle. She groaned. “I just wanna collapse on my bed and not wake up until tomorrow afternoon.” She loped towards the gate; Sara and Wirt fell to her side.

“But you’re going to a party tonight, aren’t you?” Sara probed.

“Ugh, I don’t know if I actually wanna go.”

“Beatrice, you _have_ to go,” her roommate insisted. “Where else are you going to get free alcohol?”

“From you.”

Sara held up her index finger. “Not the point. And besides, that’s enough trouble as it is.”

“What Sara _really_ wants,” Wirt chimed in, the first time he spoke since Beatrice met the two at the bleachers, “is for you to _take_ her to this party.”

Beatrice chuckled. “Is that what you want? You want me to be your ticket to a club soccer party?”

“I… _might_ want to drown my anxiety for the upcoming week with intoxicating beverages, yes,” Sara replied as she pretended to avoid Beatrice’s gaze. “But so far this semester, you haven’t gone to a party. Not that I know of, at least.”

Beatrice laughed again. Sara was right; this club soccer party would be her first of sophomore year. She was indifferent to large house parties. She went to a few in high school and freshman year, but they were never her go-to plans for the weekends. They were only fun if she knew at least five other people, and if the hosts served more than beer.

“And Wirt! He hasn’t gone to a party yet this semester!”

“ _Saraaaa,_ ” Wirt groaned.

Beatrice listened the two of them argue it out, never offering her two cents despite owning an opinion on the matter. If she were to go to this party, Beatrice would prefer to not have Wirt’s company around. Aside from the nights and a few hours during the weekends, Sara and Beatrice had little time together sans Wirt for roommate bonding fun. He tagged along for everything, and while Beatrice considered Wirt a friend, he was more _Sara’s_ friend—Sara’s _boy_ friend—than Beatrice’s own friend. He we wasn’t someone she could hang out with when it was just the two of them. But at this point in the semester, it was better to assume that if Sara was around, Wirt was beside her.

Besides, Wirt didn’t want to go anyways.

* * *

In the end, though, Sara won out.

Eleven o’clock on a Saturday night, and as soon as the three of them stepped into the off-campus house, Sara disappeared into the throng of people and blaring music. Beatrice herself hadn’t noticed—she, too, was noticed by a few of her teammates, and they all offered her beer ( _stale_ beer, nonetheless) and found a corner in the basement to loiter about and scope out of the scene. The first ten minutes were fine, as they chatted about the game from earlier in the day, but the conversation went downhill when an ex-boyfriend was spotted somewhere in the horde of undergrads. The chatter turned into a gossip-and-drama fest that Beatrice, quite frankly, cared nothing about. These girls were her teammates and her semi-friends. She had lunch with them every so often, and they participated in club soccer social activities (parties excluded), but she was never this _involved_ in their personal lives. They talked about classes and soccer, not dating lives. She didn’t know Olivia and Phillip broke up over the summer, and that Phillip was now dating a girl named Hannah who was on the varsity girls’ volleyball team, and that Hannah was _also_ at this party.

At least an hour passed, along with another cup of beer, and Beatrice excused herself to find the bathroom upstairs. Truth be told, she went looking for Sara—and better alcohol.

She found the better alcohol—cheap vodka and pink lemonade, but better than beer nonetheless—but Sara was lost in the crowd; some Beatrice recognized, others she didn’t. Bodies blockaded the threshold between the living room and the kitchen, and Beatrice only managed to weave through right as the game of beer pong died down before a new one would start. She headed straight towards the front door, where considerably less people milled about.

“Nice to see you here.”

Beatrice turned to her right. Wirt sat alone on the sofa, a red cup in his hand.

“Have you seen Sara?” she asked him.

“I thought she was with you.”

What a great roommate and boyfriend _they_ were.

Beatrice plopped next to him, careful not to spill her spiked pink lemonade onto the fabric, or onto Wirt. “You don’t look like you’re having fun,” she said, and sipped at the drink she concocted for herself.

“That’s because I’m not,” he responded with a weak smile. He held his red cup, filled with what was presumably the stale beer, as if to clink it with hers. To humor him, she tapped the side of her cup to his.

“Have you tried drinking more alcohol? It’s apparently makes these kinds of things more fun.”

“I have, and it’s not working,” he commented with a nod. Beatrice giggled, and _where did that come from? “_ I’m not good at these. Sara drags me to one every once in a while. She claims it will help my social skills.”

“Didn’t you get drunk once? I remember her mentioning some party the two of you went to back in high school.”

“That was the first time I was drunk, yes. I’ve been drunk about two or three times since then. What about you? Isn’t this _your_ club? You know these people. Are _you_ having fun?”

“Not really. But it beats sitting around my room, wondering about my future and what I’m doing with my life,” she joked. It was easy to talk to Wirt under these circumstances—tipsy and bored out of their wits’ end.

“It sounds like you do it often.”

“Before it was every day. Now it’s only on weekends.”

It wasn’t one of her better jokes, but Wirt laughed, so she laughed. She never heard him laugh like that. And when he laughed…well, Beatrice saw why Lorna thought him _cute_. It wasn’t an immediate attractiveness. Wirt was no male model destined for the pages of _GQ._ But it was an unconventional attractiveness, one that required a few careful studies of the face. His hair was mussed, with strands of his bangs hanging in front of his eyes. Heat rose up her body the more she stared. Sara was right; he needed these kinds of gatherings to loosen up.

“Are you doing it right now?” Wirt slurred.

Beatrice snapped out of her gawking. “What am I doing right now?” she asked.

Wirt leaned in closer to her. She brought the rim of her cup to her lips, but didn’t tilt it back to drink what was left. He reeked of beer and sweat, but he also smelled like an open can of assorted nuts. “Are you wondering about your future and what you’re doing with your life?” he elaborated.

Beatrice gazed at him, their eyes locked on one another’s. “No, not right now,” she murmured. Her head and heart thumped. She didn’t know _what_ she was thinking at the moment, other than maybe it was best if she stopped drinking as soon as she finished this vodka-infused pink lemonade. And that the blossoming warmth in her chest _needed_ to go away. And where was Sara?   

“Oh,” Wirt replied, and he moved away. “That’s good. It’s good to not worry all the time.”

“Says _you_ ,” Beatrice spat, in hopes her tone was more goofy than serious. “You worry all the time. At least from what I’ve seen of you. Sara says you worry a lot.”

Wirt frowned. “Sara doesn’t understand a lot about me.”

“But you two have been together since you were, like, eight.” Beatrice swallowed a gulp of her drink, leaving about two sips left in her cup. “You two should know each other better than you know yourselves.”

“We do, but it’s…it’s complicated.”

Beatrice tilted her head and shot him a concerted glare. Her head swam in this position. “‘It’s complicated?’ That’s an overused term if I’ve ever heard you use one.”

Wirt looked in front of him to the wall opposite of the couch. “And Time the ruined bridge has swept down the dark stream which seaward creeps,” he recited with wistful languor.

“What,” Beatrice asked, but her tone was that of a statement.

“Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

“Stop being so pretentious,” she barked.

Wirt chuckled and reached a hand over to tuck a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. “You haven’t changed,” he mumbled with a grin. The electric shock of his fingertips brushing against the side of her face forced Beatrice to sit upright, but she stayed put, and did not retreat from Wirt.

“What?” she repeated with more inquiry. He said plenty of weird stuff, but that was one of the weirdest she heard him say.

“There you guys _arrrrre_ , gettin’ all cozy,” Sara’s voice emanated from somewhere behind Wirt. At this, Beatrice shifted as far away from Wirt as the couch allowed, situating her bottom on the couch’s floppy arm.

Sara plunged next to the empty seat next to Wirt and outstretched her arms above her head. “Why aren’t you guys downstairs, where the _reaaal_ party’s at?” She threw her head back and giggled. “Thanks for bringing me along, Bea. I apparently know _a lot_ of people here, and I met so many _moooore_ people.”

Beatrice downed the last of her drink, and—hopefully—the wave of disappointment that arrived with Sara. “No problem.”

* * *

_She watched Wirt’s small form grow closer and larger with each step. He panted once he reached her and Greg. “Are th-they still chasing us?” she suffered through his heavy inhales and exhales?_

_“No,” both she and Greg said in unison._

_“Phew,” Wirt sighed of relief as he composed himself. “I-I thought you guys–”_

_“You’re welcome,” she interrupted with as sweet of a voice as she could conjure up. Such a saccharine tone was foreign to her, but if she was to gain the trust of these two boys,_ especially _of Wirt, then she needed to come across as helpful and sincere on occasion._

_Wirt paused before issuing his hesitant but genuine gratitude. “Thank you.” She reveled in that. She wasn’t as useless as he thought she was, even if he never voiced his thoughts out loud. “I guess we’re even now, huh?” he asked. “You’re not honor-bound to help us anymore.”_

_Hardly! These two brothers couldn’t disappear out of her sight now! She needed them, and they needed her. Well, they might not be so happy about the fate they would meet once they reached Adelaide’s, but it was better than being in the Beast’s clutches. If anything, Beatrice was doing them_ a favor _. “I wish,” she feigned disappointment, “but you weren’t actually in any danger with those weirdos.”_

_“Oh yeah…” a large grin erupted on Wirt’s face, “then you still have to help us get home!”_

_Smart boy. A pushover and a loser, but a smart boy, nonetheless._

_“I got it!” Greg chimed in at a shrill decibel. He held up his frog, the corners of his mouth curled upwards, ear-to-ear. “I wish Wirt Jr. had fingernails so he can play the guitar better.”_

_Both she and Wirt remained quiet. How many times did she need to reiterate to this kid that she_ wasn’t _magic? It was magic that got her in trouble, and it was magic that would fix it, but she herself possessed no magical bone in her little bird, formerly human, body._

_“So, yeah…” she transitioned as best as she could. “I’ll bring you to Adelaide. I mean, that’s where I’m going anyways.” She flew off of Greg’s teapot hat and headed down the path through the woods. Wirt and Greg followed her._

_“Why are you going to Adelaide’s?” Greg questioned in his kindly voice._

_She couldn’t tell them the truth. Not the entire truth, at least. “I guess in some ways, I’m trying to get home, too,” she said as she flew beside the two brothers._

_“That’s vague,” Wirt noted. He didn’t understand the half of it. “What does that mean?”_

_“I don’t have to tell you anything,” she countered. Even if she had to put up a kind front once in a while, an ill temper was her best armor during this journey to Adelaide’s._ Don’t get too attached, _she thought,_ and hopefully they won’t either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second verse Wirt quotes is from "Concord Hymn" by Ralph Waldo Emerson.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, yes, I finally got around to updating chapter 3! I promise that I haven't abandoned this story; my school duties are just now a major priority. This chapter has been in the back of my mind ever since I first came up with this fic idea back in mid-July. It's also an excuse for me to geek out about my thesis topic. But without further ado, enjoy!
> 
> Warning: mentions of body horror

The end of September saw a pleasant change in the weather. The heat broke and the days cooled as the nights chilled. Stubborn leaves remained resilient against the shift into autumn, intent on keeping their green colors and not drifting to the ground. Wardrobes now required long-sleeved shirts, sweaters, tights underneath dresses and skirts, and the absence of shorts. Beatrice noticed how Sara donned a bomber jacket with patches on the sleeves every day, but what drew Beatrice’s attention the most was Wirt’s outfit choices.

“Why are you wearing suspenders?” she questioned one early October afternoon when he removed his blue sweater after entering the stuffy McHale lounge. The AC and heating in McHale never worked properly. Beatrice had seen the collar of Wirt’s white shirt underneath poking out of the sweater, but the suspenders threw her off-guard.

“Lots of men wear suspenders,” Wirt replied.

“Yeah, if they’re Wall Street stockbroker douchebags from the eighties.”

“They keep my pants up.”

“So do belts,” she giggled.

“Don’t bother, Bea,” Sara interrupted. “He’s been wearing suspenders since he was, like, ten.”

Wirt scowled at the two of them. “There’s nothing _wrong_ with suspenders.”

“Maybe not,” Beatrice sang, “but did you wear mismatching shoes _on purpose_?”

Wirt looked down at his feet and groaned; he wore one black boot and one brown shoe. “I overslept this morning and had to rush to my first class, okay? I skipped breakfast.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, the sweater tossed over one of his hunched shoulders.

“You could’ve saved a minute if you put on a belt instead of suspenders,” Beatrice taunted with a sly smile and a pointed stare. Wirt huffed and rolled his eyes at her. It was like this between the two of them now—a repartee of fake insults and banter, nothing malicious, all in good fun. Sara joined in to tease Wirt once in a while, but more times than not, she kept mum on the verbal volleyball.

Beatrice enjoyed this friend group she carved out in the last month. In addition to Lorna, Maggie the theater major (who also knew Lorna from a psychology class they took together) joined them on a few hang outs. A few of Wirt’s friends from the university’s philharmonic orchestra filtered in and out as well. Beatrice was never this social in her freshman year. Although she had Lorna and her club soccer friends, she often found herself alone in her room on weekday afternoons and weekends, caught in small emotional crises, wondering if college was a suitable choice for her or not. It was better than remaining stagnant on her family farm, but maybe it wasn’t the escape Beatrice needed and desperately wanted. But these first months into her sophomore year, and already, Beatrice felt as if she belonged. Sara encouraged (i.e. _forced_ ) her and Wirt to attend home games. The two roommates joined the student’s entertainment association (known as Apogee Productions). It was a year too late, but Beatrice was finally _experiencing_ college life.

* * *

“Are your parents coming for Family Weekend?” Beatrice asked Sara as they walked out of the biweekly Apogee meeting.

“Oh yeah,” Sara responded. “By the way, they’re inviting you to go out to dinner with us again. This time you’ll get to meet my sister. Wait—is your family coming?”

“No. I didn’t invite them.” She paused. “That sounds like I don’t get along with them. I do, but have a ton of work this weekend, and they wouldn’t be able to make it anyways. Besides, they came last year.”

“So free dinner it is!” Sara exclaimed. “Oh, we might meet up with Wirt’s family, and I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if you tagged along at one point. That is, if you want to.”

Beatrice shrugged. She was hoping to indulge in some personal down time this upcoming weekend. The last time she had actual _alone time_ on the weekend was the _first_ official weekend of the semester. She spent every weekend with Sara and Wirt for hours on end, either in the room, at a campus event, or some other plans Sara concocted for the three of them. “We’ll see,” she replied. “I really _do_ have a lot of work to do. And maybe I can catch up on some sleep, too.”

“Okay, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but you’ve looked pretty tired the past few days. I know you said you stay up pretty late, but, well—”

“Don’t worry, I know I look rough,” Beatrice interrupted. She could almost _feel_ the dark circles underneath her eyes dragging down her cheeks. “I haven’t gotten much sleep. I think it’s just stress, though, now with it being almost halfway through the semester. I’m trying to maintain at least a B average in my classes, and having all my tests scheduled around each other doesn’t help my sanity.”

“I hear that. Next week’s Physics lab is gonna kill me. But, uh, just to let you know, if anything’s up, you can talk to me. And Wirt. He’s worried about you, too.”

Despite the early autumn chill in the air, Beatrice’s whole body warmed. “Oh,” she murmured. “Did he, um, say anything?”

“Oh yeah, last night at dinner he asked about you, just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”

Even though the sun was long gone and the only light emanated from the lampposts lining the campus walkway, Beatrice bit her lip and looked down to the bricks before her. She hoped Sara wouldn’t look over and catch the blush creeping on Beatrice’s cheeks. She noticed these odd bodily reactions—red, heated cheeks and ears, clammy hands, goosebumps on the back of her neck and her arms. They weren’t foreign to her, but they happened on rare occasions, like when her mother pulled out old baby books and showed them to her friends, or the scarce moments when people who weren’t her family members complimented her. But nowadays, they popped up on a near-daily basis. This kind of embarrassment had _absolutely_ zilch to do with Wirt. It fell under the surprise compliments. A friend’s concern for her wellbeing was enough to make Beatrice blush.

And that was _it._

* * *

Campus flooded with parents and other family members milling about the buildings, under the impression that campus was always this active and buzzing, with manicured lawns and special topic lectures on the weekend.  Sara left the room long before Beatrice woke up (though, Beatrice _did_ go to bed at two-thirty in the morning, and fell asleep around two hours later). Beatrice made herself some instant oatmeal and, after dressing herself, headed straight for the library to delve into the pile of work she intended to finish before five o’clock that afternoon. At least her geography paper and her French test. The statistics problems could wait.

The barren second floor of the library allowed for optimum productivity, and yet, Beatrice’s distractions outweighed her discipline and motivation. After a routine check of her school e-mail and a read-through of her classes’ syllabi for paper guidelines, Beatrice spent another twenty minutes staring at her blank documents screen or playing with her phone. She shivered; the library was too cold (meant to keep students awake as they studied, but it was, in actuality, too much of a distraction), and she forgot to bring a light jacket to wear. She sighed and typed nonsensical words onto the white page staring at her, but backspaced the words as soon as she finished typing. This paper was due Wednesday, and though she could wait until the last minute to complete it, she preferred _not_ to do that. Not when she had a French test the same day as well. As much as Beatrice loved Dr. Grey, her tests weren’t easy.

Beatrice groaned and sunk into her chair. Maybe she needed another cup of caffeine before she could power through and write some bullshit that _sounded_ academic and thoughtful enough to deserve at least a ‘B minus.’ Maybe she needed a thirty minute power nap at this study cubicle; her backpack could double as a pillow.

“Beatrice?”

“ _Fuck_ ,” she muttered under her breath. She planned on abandoning this newfound favorite spot of hers for future study sessions. She needed a space where Wirt couldn't find her.

“Um, hi,” Wirt continued on. She turned around in her chair to face him, but he wasn’t alone. Standing with him was a woman several inches shorter than Beatrice, but taller than Sara, and a younger boy, maybe about nine or ten years old. Beatrice plastered on a smile as she mentally grimaced. They were all dressed so nicely for the beautiful autumn day. Meanwhile, Beatrice wore sweatpants with bleach stains on the knees, along with a too-faded, paint-stained high school soccer team shirt, and she tied her back in the messiest, half-assed bun. Had she even brushed her hair when she woke up at noon?

She stood up from the cubicle chair. “Hi,” Beatrice responded with the sweet voice she used on everyone whom she met for the first time, hoping the saccharine kindness negated her current physical appearance.

“Um, this is Sara’s roommate, Beatrice,” Wirt said. “Beatrice, this is my mom and my brother, Greg. I’m showing them around the library because I work here. Which you knew already.”

Beatrice waved at them and smiled again, her eyes settled on the little boy. He reminded her of someone—

Beatrice almost flew back in her chair when Greg’s small body crashed into hers, his arms wrapping around her waist. “Beatrice!” Greg shouted, simultaneous with Wirt’s “ _Shhh_ , Greg, this is still the library!”

Stunned, Beatrice looked at Wirt and his mother. “Hi,” Beatrice replied with hesitancy. With her eyes, she pleaded to Wirt to pry his brother off of him. Greg’s grip around her only tightened before he released her and stepped back. For a second, Beatrice looked down for a quick study of Greg in front of her. He didn’t look like Wirt; the main similarity was their shared eye color. Otherwise, where Wirt’s face was long and narrow, Greg’s was rounded. A part of it came from pre-pubescence, but Beatrice suspected there was more to the lack of resemblance. Neither of the boys looked like their mother, except for, of course, the brown topaz eyes.

“You’re so pretty!” Greg complimented with exuberance.

Beatrice knew how disgusting she looked (and _felt_ ), but the praise paired with an infectious smile warmed her spirits, even if it was for a second or two. If only Wirt smiled like that more often, if he wasn’t such a frowning sourpuss all the time… “Thank you,” she said to Greg.

“I didn’t think you’d be so tall.”

“Oh…” was all Beatrice could say. It _sounded_ like another compliment, but a worm inside her brain wriggled about, indicating that it was more than a simple schoolboy’s compliment.

“And your hair! It’s so _red_! I didn’t think you’d be red-haired, but then again, I didn’t know what you looked like—”

“Greg, give the poor girl a chance,” the boys’ mother piped up before taking a step closer to Beatrice. “It’s so lovely to meet you!” the boys’ mother exclaimed, and she outstretched a hand, which Beatrice shook. “Wirt’s told us all about Sara’s new roommate.”

Beatrice furled her brow and glowered at Wirt. “He _has_?”

Wirt held his hands up in surrender, his face wearing his usual astonished face. “O-only good things!” he defended.

“Good things?” Even if he never said “bad things,” what constituted “good things?” That she didn’t eat Sara’s food, or dry her hair at three in the morning when Sara slept? Wirt was a friend, but not _that_ close of a friend. She didn’t borrow his shampoo after running out of her own and had forgotten to buy some of her own. He didn’t share with her his secret stash of alcohol.

“Oh, yes,” Wirt’s mother responded with a sparkle in her eyes. “It’s a shame my husband couldn’t make it this weekend. He would’ve loved to meet you. But at least _I’ve_ met you, so I can tell him all about the girl Wirt can’t stop talking about—”

“ _Mom!_ ” Wirt interjected. His mother shot him a concerted warning glare, and Beatrice saw in Wirt’s face how he racked his mind to come up with a justification for his abruptness. “Uh, Dr. Bosch is giving a lecture on transcendentalist poetry soon. We should head over now to ensure good seats. He always draws in a crowd.”

His mother rolled her eyes; Beatrice stifled her snickers. “Oh, alright, dear.” Her eyes flicked back to Beatrice. “Will you be joining Sara’s family and us for dinner later tonight? It’d be a pleasure to have you.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Beatrice said. She hadn’t thought about it ever since Sara mentioned it after the Apogee meeting, but her answer reflected her own sentiment. As kind as Wirt’s family appeared, and as generous as _Sara’s_ was, it was too much of an intrusion. Did Sara and Wirt ever have time to themselves, _without_ Beatrice’s added presence? She never _felt_ like a third wheel around them, but they could surely _think_ she was. And they’d have to share their dinner experience with their families…

“ _Booo_ ,” Greg pouted. “This is my first time seeing you, and I don’t get to hang out with you?”

Beatrice smiled, but for what, she wasn’t sure. How did she leave such a positive impression on a nine-year-old boy? Still, she played along. “Well, then you’ll just have to come back and visit,” she suggested with sincerity.

“What about tomorrow?” Greg tugged on his mother’s hand. “Can I stay with Wirt tonight? _Please_?”

“Absolutely not, you and I are driving back once we finish dinner.”

Greg whimpered at this, but Beatrice shot him another smile. “Don’t worry. We can hang out the _next_ time you visit.” His face lit up, followed with a vigorous nod.

Wirt ushered away his mother and brother. “I’ll see ya later,” he called over his shoulder.

“Nice to meet you!” his mother tacked on once her eldest son finished speaking.

Beatrice slunk back into her library chair and wondered _what_ exactly just happened. Writing her geography paper only proved more difficult. When five o’clock came and the student aide informed her of the library’s closure, Beatrice had struggled to finish just one and a half pages of the five she needed to write for this assignment. She never even touched her French notes.

* * *

“You should wear your hair down.”

Beatrice turned around from her desk to raise an eyebrow at Sara, who only offered a grin. Hairbrush in hand, Beatrice stared down at her loose red waves. “What? Why?”

“I’ve _never_ seen you wear it down. It’s always tied back in a bun or a ponytail. Sometimes you go _crazy_ and wear it in a braid. But you never just wear it loose. You always look great, don’t get me wrong, but you should try not tying it back. It’ll amp up your sex appeal.”

A snort escaped from Beatrice’s nose. “ _Yeah_ , like I’m _trying_ to do that.”

“Certain scholars would argue we do so without even trying.”

“But you’re gonna be an engineer, and I…don’t know what I’m gonna do yet, but I know I’m not trying to look appealing to anyone.”

“And you don’t _have_ to,” Sara added, her voice somewhat higher in pitch and with an extra lilt of whimsy at the end. “But, ya know, _just in case…_ ”

Beatrice tied the elastic hairband around her locks to form a ponytail. “What brought all _this_ up?”

She turned around to pick up her backpack when Sara answered, “Nothing, really.”

* * *

The October days passed faster than anyone registered. The last remnants of summer dissipated into the crisp autumn; the stubborn leaves lost their battle against the cooler temperatures. With November, the busiest month of the fall semester, on the horizon, many students sought out quick thrills before they needed to hunker down on projects, papers, and finals.

“Weldon said we didn’t have to study chapter five, right?” Beatrice asked one afternoon as she and Lorna walked to the library.

“I thought it was chapter four.”

Beatrice groaned.  As much as she enjoyed her past geography classes, Landform Processes was her least favorite. “Weldon’s too inconsistent,” she groused as they passed a group of unjaded prospective students and their parents. “I don’t ever want to take another class with her again. Did she ever even post the reading for Friday?”

“I haven’t checked.”

She opened her mouth to launch into another tirade, but Lorna spoke up first. “Oh, look, it’s Wirt.”

“Where?” Beatrice stared in front of her, in search of the lanky, brown-haired boy. She saw him several yards ahead, heading towards her and Lorna, but he wasn’t standing or walking. He rode a bicycle. From her distance, he looked even more awkward.

Wirt waved to them, braked his bicycle, and planted his feet on the walkway once the three of them were in a suitable range for talking. “Hi,” he panted. “Where’re you two heading?”

“Library, for another study session,” Beatrice informed as casually as she could sound.

“Oh, I just came from there; I had to take up someone’s shift again. Now I’m on my way to a meeting with my advisor.”

Beatrice stared down at his bicycle. “Since when do you ride bikes?” she inquired, transfixed on the contraption underneath him.

“Uhh, I learned when I was five.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I _mean_ , since when did you have a bike _on campus_?”

“Since freshman year,” Wirt responded, still uncertain what she was insinuating. (In his defense, Beatrice didn’t know, either.)

“I’ve _never_ seen you ride that thing,” she stated.

“I only ride it to class and to work.”

“How _old_ is this thing?” It was a red, thin-framed racing bicycle— _vintage_ , for sure. Wirt refused to admit how much of a hipster he was, despite all the evidence pointing to the fact of the matter. English major, constant poetry recitations, suspenders, the casual-dress shoe hybrids he wore, antique bicycle…

“Um, I think it’s from the seventies? My grandpa used to race.”

She snickered. “You look like a praying mantis.”

“What?” he raised an eyebrow at her.

“Like, if you already didn’t look all gawky before, you look even gawkier now, riding your hipster bike.”

“Okay…” Wirt said, hesitant, “um…moving on to something else.”

Beatrice pressed her lips together to suppress her creeping grin. Just another victory for her. Before Wirt spoke, however, Lorna’s loud “ _Achoo!_ ” startled them both. The two of them blessed her in unison, and it almost surprised Beatrice how she’d almost forgotten about Lorna’s presence within the last minute. “Thanks,” Lorna accepted.

Beatrice returned her attentions to Wirt. “Don’t you have an advisor meeting to go to?”

“Uh, yeah, but um, my bike cuts the commute in half, and Dr. Bosch is almost never on time anyways…but, uh, I wanna ask you something.”

“Me?”

“Well, the both of you, actually,” Wirt corrected, gesturing to both her and Lorna. “Do either of you know about The Hague?”

Lorna answered first. “That’s the old movie theater downtown, right? The one that plays all the indie and foreign movies?”

Wirt nodded. “Yeah. Well, every year for Halloween they do an Old Hollywood horror movie double feature. I was wondering if you—the two of you—would like to go. Sara and I went last year, when they showed _Nosferatu_ and the original _Dracula_. This year they’re doing an Alfred Hitchcock double feature— _Psycho_ and _The Birds_.”

Beatrice stiffened. “Halloween’s next Thursday, right?”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to make it,” Lorna frowned. “I’ll have to check my schedule to be sure, but I think I’m going to be on duty for Halloween.”

Wirt turned to Beatrice, his bike rolling back and forth. “What about you, Bea?”

_Bea?_

“I think I’ll pass on that one.”

Maybe it was the expression on his face, and the slight increase in his pitch, but Beatrice detected a hint of disappointment. “Oh,” Wirt responded. “Okay. Um, well, I need to make that meeting. See you later.”

She watched Wirt pedal down the walkway, going in the opposite of the library. She walked alongside Lorna once more, hands firmly wrapped around the straps of her backpack, her eyes on the interlocking brick pattern in front of her. “So, it’s chapter five we don’t have to study, right?”

* * *

_Tap tap tap._

Beatrice moaned and turned onto her left side, pulling the thermal blanket over her head. It must’ve been her next door neighbors, who held random dance parties at the most inconvenient times. Like now, as Beatrice attempted to nap. She’d have to talk to them at some point at how loud they could be.

_Tap tap tap._

Her eyes fluttered open. That was the door, not the neighbors. “Hang on,” she raised her voice to whomever it was outside in the hallway. The lights were off in the room, but the glow of the outside lantern hanging in front of their window was enough for Beatrice to think it was still the afternoon. Throwing the thermal blanket off of her, she climbed out of the bed and checked her phone. Six-thirteen p.m. _Oops._ She didn’t mean for her post-class nap to end up taking four hours, and now she felt groggy and in worse a mood than before climbing into her bed.

Beatrice flicked the room light on before opening the door. On the other side stood Wirt, wearing his usual fall-time ensemble of a white collared shirt underneath a knit maroon sweater, trousers, and—much to her disappointment—matching shoes. Still reeling from the wooziness, Beatrice rubbed her eyes. “Yeah?” she greeted rather unwelcomingly. Her mom wouldn’t like that.

“Is Sara here?” Wirt asked, leaning forward to peek into the room.

Beatrice squared herself in front of him so he wouldn’t enter. “No, and _what_ do you think you’re doing?” she retorted at him. Post-nap grogginess only _increased_ her short temper. She stepped forwards and closed the door behind her, forcing Wirt to stumble backwards to make extra space for him. She would’ve laughed at him if it wasn’t for the dizziness in her head, and the post-nap grouchiness.

Once Wirt stood flat on his feet, he rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, uh…” He studied Beatrice. “Were you sleeping? Did I wake you?”

“Yes and yes.”

“I-I’m sorry, I d-didn’t know—”

“It’s fine,” she waved off.

She expected Wirt to stumble over his words as he strung along his next thought, but much to her surprise, he chuckled. “This is some weird déjà vu, huh?”

“Is it?”

“Yeah. Like, the day before classes start, I mean…”

“What is it?” Beatrice cut him off. “Do you need something?”

“N-no. I mean, yes! I need someone. I need Sara,” Wirt replied. His face fell. “But she’s not here and we made plans. The Hague and all.”

 _Oh, right_ —it was Halloween. A few students in her classes dressed up for the occasion. That nap knocked her out more than she intended it to. In response, Beatrice shook her head. She hadn’t seen Sara since they passed each other in the hallway when Beatrice returned from her two P.M. class to crash after another night with restless sleep. “Did you try texting or calling her?” she offered, but _of course_ he did. Her hand pawed at the doorknob, about to twist it so she could open the door and resume her nap. Or maybe put shoes on and find something to eat for dinner before diving into her homework.

“Yes,” Wirt answered. “She hasn’t responded yet, and Sara always answers instantly.”

“Oh,” Beatrice mumbled. Wirt was upset, but he hid his dismay—albeit terribly. She released her grip on the doorknob and faced Wirt, who stared at his feet. From the two months she’d been Sara’s roommate, Beatrice found Sara to be attentive and prompt; unlike Beatrice, she wrote essays days in advance, and always complained when Wirt would answer a text thirty minutes afterwards. For Sara to be missing in action, especially when she and Wirt made plans on Halloween, it didn’t add up. Was this was an accidental hiccup, or occasional hypocrisy? Beatrice hoped it was the former; Sara was too nice of a roommate to give in to hypocritical tendencies.

Five girls dressed in costumes passed by her and Wirt. Three of them dressed as the Powerpuff Girls, while another wore a Wonder Woman costume, and the fifth sported a box decorated to resemble a refrigerator ( _one of these things are not like the other_ , Beatrice noted). And yet, Wirt wore his typical Wirt uniform, and Beatrice her usual lazy attire. “Um, do you wanna step inside?” Beatrice asked. “I’ll try calling Sara for you.”

“Oh, thanks,” Wirt accepted. He followed Beatrice into the cramped space she shared with his girlfriend, and took the seat at Sara’s desk. Self-conscious of Wirt’s eyes on her, Beatrice picked up her phone from the dresser and dialed Sara’s number. The few times she and Wirt were together and alone in the room, it was when Sara went to the bathroom, or stepped into the hallway to take a phone call. They exchanged awkward glances and spoke in brief, even after their friendship strengthened in the last month or so. No matter how many strides the two of them achieved, Sara still acted as a buffer for them, the main link that kept roommate and boyfriend in contact with one another.

The tone rang three times before Sara’s voice on the other end rang in Beatrice’s ears.“Hey, what’s up?”

“Uh, hey, Sara, um, Wirt’s here. He’s been trying to get in contact with you—”

“ _Oh shit_ ,” Sara groaned into the receiver. “I totally forgot about our plans. Can you pass the phone over to Wirt for a moment?”

“Sure thing,” Beatrice said, and she handed her phone over to Wirt. “Sara wants to talk to you.”

Wirt took the phone from her and placed it next to his ear. “Hey, where are you? ... Oh, that’s okay… no, really, it’s okay. … Yeah, don’t worry about. … I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Bye.” He tossed the phone back to Beatrice. “She’s in a study group for one of her engineering classes for a big test tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Beatrice fiddled with her phone’s case. Sara never mentioned a test the day after Halloween, unless Beatrice hadn’t paid attention. “So, are you still gonna go to The Hague and all?”

Wirt stared at the space of floor between them, dejected. “I don’t know. It’s too late to catch a train ride back home so I can trick-or-treat with Greg, and I finished all my homework that’s due for tomorrow.” He stood up and headed to the door. “Uh, thanks for calling Sara. Sorry for waking you up.”

Sometimes, she hated this whole “having a conscience” thing. It popped up at the most inconvenient times.

“Wait!” Beatrice clambered off of her bed and slipped a pair of sneakers on. “I’ll go with you.”

“But when I asked you last week—”

“Well, I don’t want you to cancel these plans you’ve had for a while now just because someone cancelled on _you_. And I don’t have anything to do for the rest of the night.” She shoved her arms into a light jacket and zipped it up.

Wirt slumped his shoulders over, a crease in his face. “You don’t have to do that. Don’t you have a morning class tomorrow?”

“At, like, ten. Besides, I just woke up from a four hour nap. I’m not falling asleep until, at the earliest, two-thirty.”

She watched Wirt mull it over, his eyes looking past her, his thumbs twiddling together. “You must be hungry.”

“Starving, actually. I haven’t eaten since one.”

“The Hague makes some good concessions. Inexpensive, too.”

She picked up her wallet, keys, and phone, dropped them in the pockets of her jacket, and stamped to the door. “Then what’re we waiting for? Doesn’t the bus stop at the fountain every ten minutes?”

* * *

“Wait, when does the shower scene happen?”

“ _Shh_.”

Beatrice reached for a handful of popcorn to chomp on. She and Wirt sat in two seats on the balcony of The Hague’s theater (old movie theater indeed—one screen with heavy, royal red curtains, and a _balcony_ ). When they purchased their tickets, most people migrated to the first floor. She and Wirt were two of six people sitting at the top level, with the four others dispersed several rows further back.

“When’s all this killing supposed to happen? This is a horror movie, right? Thirty minutes in and there has yet to be any bloodshed.”

“Why don’t you just watch the movie and see what happens?”

Beatrice flicked one of the popcorn pieces at Wirt. “You’re no fun.”

“I’m trying to watch a movie. That’s the whole reason we’re here.”

The rest of _Psycho_ entranced Beatrice to a capacity she hadn’t expected. When it finished, she turned to Wirt as the lights went up and the curtain closed as set up for the next movie. “That’s…I...wow.”

“Right?”

“That’s not what I expected. At all. I mean, I knew about the shower scene, but…everything _else_ …”

“Just wait until _The Birds_. It’s intense.”

She sat back in her chair, shrinking into the cushion. “Oh, yeah,” Beatrice mumbled. She remembered why she turned down Wirt’s offer when he first mentioned it.

* * *

It wasn’t so bad at first. She twitched a few times, but nothing noticeable.

But then came the close up of the man with the pecked-out eyes…

“Beatrice?”

“Hmm?”

“Um, you’re cutting circulation off to my fingers.”

Beatrice glared at Wirt. “What?” she rasped, but her eyes traveled to where his hand rested on the armrest between them. Her own hand gripped onto his, the tips of his fingers a reddish purple reminiscent of rhubarb or radishes. “Oh,” she mumbled, and released her grasp and brought her hand back to her lap. She kept her eyes focused on the movie screen in front of her. She could handle _this_ scene.

In the corner of her eye, she saw Wirt shake his hand out. “What’s wrong?” he whispered a beat later.

“Nothing,” Beatrice replied. Her raised heartbeat was because she lied (and this damn movie), _not_ because he leaned closer to her, or that his hot breath fell on her left ear. “I’m fine,” she insisted once more, and sipped her soda to hose down her inflamed discomfort.

“Uh, it’s definitely not _nothing_ ,” Wirt countered. “You nearly made my fingertips fall off. What’s wrong?”

Beatrice shrunk in her seat. Should she tell him? Only her family and Lorna knew about it. It was bound to come up in conversation later on, but it was too raw and embarrassing, especially given the movie playing at the moment. She sighed and leaned towards him. “Okay, this is going to sound stupid, but…” she paused to collect herself, just to be certain she was making a conscious decision to tell Wirt this factoid about herself. “I’m afraid of birds.”

She glanced to examine Wirt. The pale blue glow of the movie screen illuminated half of his face, while shadows bathed the other half. The silence among them was too prolonged, too tense. “Birds?” he repeated.

“Yeah,” she whispered.

“Oh.” He sounded surprised. “That’s...you shoulda told me that before we came here.”

Beatrice frowned at him. “I didn’t want to back out like Sara.” At this, she mentally kicked herself; she hated throwing Sara under the bus, but it was the first sentence out of her mouth.

“How bad is it?” Wirt probed. “Is it just ‘I don’t like birds’ or is it ‘I freak out when I see birds?’”

Beatrice mulled over the thought. It varied. She disliked when birds stared at her or loitered around her. And she never forgave her brother Elliot for paying the high school mascot, a falcon, to chase her around the bleachers during one of the home football games her family forced her to attend. “Somewhere in the middle, but right now it’s leaning towards the freaking out,” she muttered.

“Do you want to leave?” Wirt offered.

“No,” she half-lied. “I’ll…I’ll be okay.”

“It’s only going to get worse. You’ll be traumatized.”

“I already _am_.”

“Then we’re leaving.” Wirt stood up and sauntered towards the balcony’s staircase.

Her first instinct was to call after him, but that was probably _not_ the best idea when in a movie theater. She waited in her seat for a second before standing up herself and descending down the staircase. Wirt stood at the bottom, his hands deep in his pockets. “Hey, I said I’d sit through the rest of it.”

“I can’t let you do that. Not when you’re watching a movie that will only worsen your ornithophobia.”

“My what?”

“Ornithophobia, the fear of birds.”

She rolled her eyes. “ _Of course_ you know that off the top of your head.”

Wirt smiled at her and looked away, running a hand through his hair. He needed a haircut. For someone who wore his autumn Sunday bests every day, the untidy hair ruined the whole image he was going for.

“Thanks…” she paused for a moment. It was…sweet of him. “I’m sorry,” she apologized.

“Why?”

“Because you won’t see the end.”

“I’ve seen _The Birds_ three times before. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Then why did you come to see it here?”

“Because Hitchcock’s movies deserve to be seen on the big screen.”

With her elbow, Beatrice nudged his ribs. “You are _such_ a hipster.”

Wirt ignored her. “Hey, the last bus to campus isn’t for another thirty minutes. Do you want some ice cream?”

Beatrice glanced at her phone. “Ice cream places stay open this late? In October? On Halloween?”

“ _This_ place does. Just think of it as me apologizing for taking you to movies with major bird motifs in them when you’re ornithophobic.”

Now he was just showing off. “ _Psycho_ had bird motifs?”

“The whole scene where Marion and Norman are talking in the back room, with all his stuffed birds. Didn’t that creep you out?”

She shrugged at him. “A little, but they weren’t _alive_ and pecking people’s eyes out. Isn’t that whole scene supposed to be creepy, though?”

“Yes.”

“Well, mission accomplished, Hitchcock.”

They stepped out of the theater and onto the street. For Halloween, it was rather quiet, the only bustle coming from the bar across the street. Otherwise, it was a pleasant night for Halloween, with just the right amount of chill in the air, but not enough to deter people inside. Several people milled about, some dressed in costumes, some dressed in casual clothes like Wirt and Beatrice. Beatrice never went downtown at night, but she saw the appeal. With the lights and the historical false-fronts, it was kind of romantic.

“So, ice cream?”

Beatrice _should_ have turned down the offer and suggest they wait for the bus. It was too cold for ice cream. Wasn’t there some rule about eating sugary foods this late at night, anyways? And she needed to finish the homework due for tomorrow...

“Sure,” she told Wirt.

* * *

_They waited in silence for several minutes in the black void, with a sliver of light from the edge of the door. It was Wirt who spoke first. “Okay, I think they’re gone.”_

_She remained quiet. From the tone of his voice, she expected him to follow his words with more babbling._

_“Beatrice? Ya there?” Wirt’s hand searched for her in the dark, pressing against her little body._

_“Ugh,_ yes _, smart guy!” she yelled. He was insufferable at times. Where else could she go when they were inside an armoire? Some secret pathway? What a drip. What a loser. A drippy loser. “Start searching for change,” she demanded._

 _Unsurprisingly, Wirt did as told. As stubborn as Wirt could be (which was_ very _), he was still a pushover. He moved towards what Beatrice assumed to be the clothes within the cramped space. “Ack, I can’t see anything in here,” Wirt groaned. He fumbled around in empty darkness, and she heard the soft rustling of his little hands on fabric. “Well, I don’t think these coats have pockets,” he announced a second or two later._

_She reminded herself not to sigh at his incompetency. “Check the lining,” she advised. “Maybe somebody sewed money into the fabric.”_

_Once again, Wirt obeyed. “No,” he sighed in defeat. Underneath her bird feet, Wirt’s shoulder moved a little backwards. “Do people even do that?” he inquired, dubious._

_“Well, I’ve done it on my clothes,” she mumbled. Her mind receded back to the days when she traveled with her father to several of the markets, and he handed her and her siblings a few coins to spend on a special treat just for themselves. Most of the time, she purchased a lemon tart and some birch beer, but she once bought herself a nice ribbon for her hair. It matched the cornflower blue dress her mother sewed for her a few weeks prior. And it matched her eyes. That was what her father said when she adorned it in her hair later that particular afternoon, even though she wore the detestable soft pink dress._

_“You wear clothes?” Wirt inquired. “Like a little bird vest or something?” He laughed, and if she could furrow her brow, she would. “Or little bows?”_

_“When I was a human, fool!” she yelled, her wings outstretched. No need to be patronizing, and yet, here was, patronizing her._

_“You used to be human?” Wirt paused, and her little bird heart sank deep into her little bird stomach. Now he knew. And he’d want to know more about it. She went out of her way never to mention the circumstance and her burden, but she slipped up (as she often did), and her pride got the best of her._

_“Did I know that?” Wirt continued, fixated on her confession. “I don’t think I knew that.”_

_“Jiminy Cricket!” she hollered at this ridiculous boy. “Let’s just find some coins, alright?” That was it, the discussion was over, and Wirt better accept it. “Open the door,” she commanded._

_Wirt jiggled with the door, but it never opened. “It’s stuck,” he said. “Well, guess we have to spend some quality time together.”_

Ohhhhhh no. _“Help!” she panicked._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I would like to thank all of you for your patience as I write this fic. 
> 
> Warning: unadulterated hate for _The Music Man_

Beatrice woke up the Friday after Halloween at nine-fifty-six in the morning, a mere four minutes before her first class. She rolled over on her side and continued to sleep until one p.m., effectively missing her classes for the day.

At dinner with Sara and Lorna, Beatrice wasn’t too talkative and mostly listened to her friends talk about their newfound rush of classwork and other responsibilities. Wirt’s absence hadn’t struck Beatrice at first; she assumed he was running late from philharmonic rehearsal or work, and would join them later. But already twenty minutes in, and he hadn’t shown up.

“Where’s Wirt?”

“Oh, he didn’t tell you?” Sara frowned. “He’s home for the weekend.”

Beatrice bit her lip. He never mentioned that yesterday. “No, he didn’t,” she mumbled. Was she disappointed? _No._ Wirt wasn’t obligated to tell her anything about his life. They were friends, but she wasn’t his girlfriend.

(Not that Beatrice wanted to be. Wirt was weird.)

“It’s a last-minute thing. He just decided to grab a ride from someone heading in that direction.”

Beatrice shoveled a mouthful of dry pesto chicken into her mouth and kept quiet for the rest of dinner.

* * *

Saturday, Beatrice went with club soccer to a game at a university in the northeastern corner of the state. They only arrived back to campus shortly before midnight.

Sunday afternoon, Beatrice found a study cubicle on the third floor of the library, close to the bathrooms and the water fountain, and forced herself to finish her usual readings and practice problems. Hot coffee in the corner of the desk and snacks in her backpack, she planned to only leave the library once every last bit of homework was completed. Or until her brain fried. Whichever happened first.

She finished the French problems and had just opened her statistics textbooks to the problems she needed to complete when she heard the whisper. “Hey, Beatrice.”

Beatrice jumped in her skin and whirled around in her chair. “ _Shit_ , Wirt, do you just work here all the time?” she rasped. “Do you just go looking for me?”

Wirt’s face fell. “I’m not working right now,” he whispered in response, “I’m actually looking for some books I need for a paper, and I saw you. Why’d you change from the second floor to the third? I thought you liked that one cubicle with the bad WiFi signal.”

“It was taken,” she lied. Settling down from the shock, she arched an eyebrow. “Wait a second, Sara said you went home this weekend.”

“My mom drove me back this morning,” he informed with nonchalance. “What about you? How was your club soccer game?”

At this, Beatrice tilted her head and furrowed her brows. “How did you know about that?”

“You mentioned it on Halloween, when we had ice cream.”

She couldn’t recall that, but not because it sounded unlike her. She mostly remembered her pistachio ice cream and Wirt insisting that he pay for it after the mishap with _The Birds_. She remembered how the fluorescent light brightened his eyes and highlighted faint sunspots across his nose. ( _Very_ unflattering and did not make him look any cuter than he already was. Absolutely not. If anything, the light even darkened the circles underneath his eyes.)

“Thanks for coming with me, by the way,” Wirt piped up, both sheepish and grateful in tone. “On Halloween, I mean. You didn’t have to.”

Beatrice hoped the warmth she felt wouldn’t manifest itself as a blush on her face. “It was nothing,” she brushed off. “I mean, it’s no big deal. It was fun.”

“Even if I almost traumatized you?”

Her lips curved a little upwards. “Yeah, the nightmares were totally worth that amazing ice cream you paid for.”

“I-I-I’m sorry! I…well, you should’ve said something, but…I-I should’ve asked you if—”

“Oh my God, I’m _kidding_ ,” Beatrice groaned, albeit playfully. “I didn’t have any nightmares. I couldn’t fall asleep, though, but it wasn’t because of the movie.” Wirt remained silent, as if expecting her to continue, but Beatrice dropped the topic of her insomnia in favor of discussing something that _wasn’t_ about her. “So, you just decided to hitch a ride with someone and go visit your family?” she changed the subject.

Wirt pulled up a chair from a nearby empty study cubicle and sat. As he leaned in to speak with her at a low decibel, his knees touched hers; Beatrice tried to ignore it. (Keyword: _tried_.)

“Yeah, uh…I just felt like seeing Greg.”

“He’s your brother, right?” She recalled the boy from Family Weekend, and how excited he was to see her. She wouldn’t admit to anyone, let alone _Wirt_ , but from the little snippets she picked up on in the last few months, she envied the relationship he shared with his brother. Beatrice had six younger siblings, and though she loved them, she never rushed home to visit them.

“He’s actually my half-brother. His dad is my stepdad.”

“Oh.” She would’ve asked him more about that, but she didn’t want to take the risk of discussing a potentially complicated situation with Wirt.

And it appeared Wirt didn’t want to, either. He kept his eyes low, but they lit up not even a second later. “That reminds me,” he added, fumbling his hands in his pockets, “Greg sent you a present.”

Beatrice sat back in her chair, puzzled. “Me? I met your brother once, for like, five minutes—”

Wirt procured an object from one of his pockets and handed it over to her. His clammy hands brushed against her warm ones, but she was more fascinated with the hard lump in her hand. She examined it: a rock with a silly face painted on it.

“He made it for you,” Wirt whispered. “He calls it the Rock Facts Rock.”

Beatrice giggled at it. “That’s very sweet of him, but seriously, why would he want me to have this? Shouldn’t this be a gift for Sara?”

Wirt shrugged, but the gesture was accompanied with a soft, crooked smile. “He sees Sara all the time. But he hasn’t seen you in a while.”

“Since Family Weekend, for five minutes,” Beatrice reiterated.

Wirt opened his mouth, but Beatrice recognized a hesitancy in his expression. “Right,” he conceded after a pause. She detected despondency. Maybe even disappointment. She shook those thoughts out of her mind.

“Um, well, he thought you would like it,” Wirt continued. “You’re supposed to tell silly facts with it, but I’m sure you can use it as a paperweight or something.”

“You can tell him I said thank you.”

Wirt stood up from his chair, but kept his hand over the edge of the back—an indication of him lingering, not about to leave just yet. “Is there anything _else_ I can help you with?” Beatrice joked. She set aside the painted rock and gazed up at him with a smirk.

“Well, uh, I was wondering…”

“ _Yeeeeeees_?” she dragged out teasingly.

Wirt fidgeted, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Um, so this month I’m going to be really busy and all, with philharmonic rehearsals for our winter concert, and then being in the stupid musical.” He rubbed the back of his neck and stared off to the side. “And, so, uh…I won’t be making a lot of the dinners with you and Sara. But, I thought maybe we could have lunch together?”

Beatrice always brought a light jacket or a sweater with her to the library. The temperature was always kept at a steady sixty-eight-degrees Fahrenheit so students would be uncomfortable enough to not fall asleep as they studied. But at that moment, the library was a heat wave.

“Sure,” she agreed without thinking.

“Okay,” Wirt said. “Well, I…I have to find my books. See you tomorrow?”

She nodded.

* * *

_Wirt and I are having lunch tomorrow,_ Beatrice texted Sara twenty minutes after Wirt left.

_Oh that’s great!_

_Don’t you want to join us?_

_I can’t._

_I think you should join us._

_But I can’t. Have fuuuuuuuuun!_

* * *

As anticipated, the first three weeks of November brought about the wave of pre-finals assignments and tests that ate away at social lives. Attempting to see anyone after four p.m. was futile. During the second week, Beatrice went two full days without ever seeing Sara. Their different schedules mixed with evening study sessions or labs resulted in the two never being in the same room together—except at night, when Beatrice returned to the room at one o’clock in the morning and Sara was fast asleep. It was pure chance when they passed each other one afternoon as Beatrice returned from a lunch with Wirt right as Sara was running late to one of her classes.

“Party this Saturday with the engineering frat. You in?” Sara asked in the split second they intersected.

“ _Yes_ ,” Beatrice rushed. She didn’t see Sara again until nine p.m. later that day.

(And for once, on that Saturday, Beatrice _let loose_. She remembered hazy pockets of the party. Top shelf fruity vodkas, maybe some whiskey, a lot of dancing, half-carrying Sara back to their room in an agonizing thirty minute walk. Lots of giggling. Sara puking in the trashcan right next to the steps of McHale, followed with a slurry “ _Thaaaaaaank yooooooou_.”)

It was a pity that _The Music Man_ ran for the three weekends before Thanksgiving; it meant Wirt was occupied from Thursday nights to Sunday afternoons. Beatrice didn’t know when Sara saw Wirt, but she claimed she did. The lunches with him helped Beatrice retain some sanity and engage in socialization. Ever since Halloween, it no longer felt like Wirt was just Sara’s boyfriend, but he was also Beatrice’s friend. The class she had at noon always dragged out—not only in the boring subject matter, but how it was her last class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and the fifty minutes separated her from food and Wirt’s company.

The day before opening night, the first Wednesday of November, Beatrice couldn’t help but to tease him about it.

“I’m definitely coming to see this thing.”

“ _Please don’t_ ,” Wirt pleaded with desperate eyes. “You’ll hate it.”

“It’s a musical, it can’t be that bad.”

“No, you’ll hate it. The theatre department might do a good job so it’s _bearable_ , but the show itself is _awful_. Don’t waste your fifteen dollars. Use it for laundry money.”

For the average college student, fifteen dollars was five loads of laundry, or a decent meal at one of the local restaurants.

* * *

“I thought I told you _not_ to see this godawful show.”

(Beatrice could forgo dinner at a restaurant. And Thanksgiving break was less than a week away; her outfits would look funny for the next few days, but she could take her load of dirty laundry back home and save a whole three dollars.)

She smiled at Wirt as he met with her in the lobby of the theatre. He wore an all-black ensemble, a stark contrast to the color marching band uniform he wore while on stage for, at most, six minutes. “You’re in it,” she stated, as if it was reason enough. It was.

“I’m an _extra_. You wasted fifteen dollars to see an _extra_.”

“I had to see you embarrass yourself. It’s the last week of this show, my window of opportunity was closing.”

They stepped out of the lobby and into the crisp autumn night. A light rain drizzled across campus, and a gentle fog settled amongst the campus walkway, aglow from the orange light of the lampposts. A handful of students cut through the mist as they made their ways back to their respective dorms. Beatrice thanked her earlier self for having the intuition to bring her umbrella with her. At the top of the steps, Beatrice opened the umbrella, but right as she descended down the steps and into the rain, Wirt snatched the handle from her and held it over the two of them. She shot him an astonished, defiant glare, but his mere response was, “I’m taller.”

Beatrice huffed, crossed her arms, and rolled her eyes. But Wirt was right; it _was_ easier for him to hold the umbrella.

“Sara almost came,” she blurted as they walked down the long stretch of brick. What made her feel the need to say so was a mystery, and yet, she continued on. “But she has a test to study for tomorrow.”

“I know, she told me.”

“Of course she would,” Beatrice muttered under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” she said.

Unfazed (or, at least, smart enough not to press further), Wirt went on a complaint tirade of _The Music Man_ ’s merits, or lack thereof. “It wasn’t _that_ bad,” Beatrice offered. In actuality, it was a total lie. She was bored throughout the whole production, and the music screeched at her ears (not the pit orchestra’s playing, but the melody and the lyrics themselves). Rather, she preferred to play devil’s advocate, to rile up Wirt even more and hear his anger at something as trivial as a Broadway musical.

“I mean, of _all_ the musicals to pick, of all the _classical_ musicals, they choose _The Music Man_?” he groused, at which Beatrice laughed. “What’s so funny?” he scowled.

“ _You_ are. You really hate this musical.”

“Because it’s _odious_! ‘Gary, Indiana, Gary Indiana…’ good grief that’s going to be stuck in my head until finals.”

Beatrice skipped a little ahead, but not far enough to escape the boundary of her umbrella. Who said _odious_ anymore? “You _could’ve_ said _no_ …”

Wirt kicked at a crumpled leaf fallen from one of the trees. “I could’ve,” he sighed.

“Pushover.”

However, Wirt wasn’t letting go of the topic. “But, I mean, _really_ , our theatre department could do so much better. They did _Into the Woods_ last year and it was amazing.” He stopped at a lamppost, but Beatrice only noticed when raindrops plopped onto her scalp and nose, and she turned around to see Wirt curl a hand over the cylindrical ironwork. “They should’ve done _Singin’ in the Rain._ Now _that’s_ a good classic musical. But then it would mean the lead would have to take some intensive tap dancing classes in just two months.” Wirt twirled himself around the post, and Beatrice’s umbrella dropped to the grass lying next to the walkway. “‘I’m singing in the rain, just _siiiiiiiinging in the rain_ ,’” he sang.

Beatrice giggled. “Don’t quit your day job, Wirt,” she pestered with a smirk. Although, Wirt wasn’t a bad singer. Not _amazing_ , but not screeching, either. And this was a side of him she never witnessed before: a playful, carefree Wirt who twirled around lampposts in the rain while he sang showtunes. It was sweet. It was…cute, despite her disdain to admit it.

She bent down to pick up the umbrella, but as Wirt coiled around the lamppost, his wiry legs collided into her, and she tumbled to the damp brick. She let out an _ooof_ as her side hit the ground, the impact not too painful to cause injury, but quick and hard enough for a sharp ripple to resonate across that half of her body.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” Wirt apologized as he helped her up, his voice panicked and frightened. “That was…well, that was stupid of me, and, ugh, I’m _so_ sorry.”

“Thank you, but shut up,” Beatrice bemoaned. She adjusted herself and, with a sigh, leaned against the lamppost. The umbrella remained on the ground, and despite the light drips sprinkling in her hair and on her coat, she left it in the patch of grass.

Wirt closed in on her. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

“No.” A little sore, but not hurt.

“Are you sure? Because you took a tumbling—”

“Wirt, I’m _fine_ ,” Beatrice asserted. She looked up at him and puffed once more, realizing he placed his hands on her shoulders. Underneath the marigold hue of the lamppost’s light, Wirt’s facial features sharpened. He stared intently at her, hands still on her shoulders. In this prolonged silence, the rain faded away to a distant hum, overpowered by each individual thump of her heart.

“What’re you staring at?” She meant to sound menacing, a warning for him to back off. But with his face not even a full handspan apart, it was more of a whisper—and not even a harsh one at that.

Wirt didn’t respond immediately. Beatrice bit her lower lip in anticipation of something— _anything_. She was about to shove him away because of the invaded personal space, but right as her hands reached up to push against his chest, Wirt opened his mouth.

“She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies _—”_

“Shut up,” she commanded for the second time that night, and with her hands grabbing fistfuls of his raincoat’s collar, Beatrice pulled Wirt towards her and smashed his lips onto hers.

Oh, _wow_ , did this feel nice. _Sublime_ , even. The cold rain fell on them, but Beatrice burned inside and out as she molded her mouth with Wirt’s. For one fleeting moment, she panicked at Wirt not returning the kiss, but his hands inched from her shoulders to her waist to close the little space remaining between them. Beatrice reveled in that, knowing Wirt moved forwards because he wanted to kiss her as much as she wanted to kiss _him_. It was all so clear to her now—she desired this for quite a while, even though she couldn’t decide _since_ when. A lukewarm wave oscillated up into her chest and back down into her stomach. For such a simple, chaste, and close-lipped kiss, it left Beatrice dizzy and unthinking of the world around her. And for Wirt being, well, _Wirt_ , he was a decent kisser. He must’ve learned from Sara—

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Beatrice murmured as she retreated from Wirt.

All the pleasant, comforting, and tender emotions washing away with guilt and regret. Her grip on his collar loosened, and she fixated her stare on the tip of his nose. Beatrice couldn’t look him in the eyes, but she did make out the distinct shape of his eyebrows knitting together in confusion. “What is it?” he sighed.

“You’re Sara’s boyfriend.”

“What?”

“You’re dating my roommate!” Beatrice yelled, and with one swift kick, the toe of her boot rammed into his shin.

“ _Owwww_!” Wirt released her and crouched down to his leg. Beatrice sprinted away, in the direction of McHale Hall. With one foot after the other at such haste, it was akin to flying.

“Wait, _owwwww,_ Beatrice!” Wirt called after her, but she ignored him. The rain wasn’t too heavy, but the drops obscured some of her vision as she flitted down the main walkway. She chastised herself each step of the way. She _kissed_ her roommate’s boyfriend, _knowing_ they were dating. And Sara was her _friend_ — _oh no_ , this was a disaster. A clichéd, but nonetheless monumental, catastrophe. Wirt was at fault, too. She shouldn’t have kissed him, but he was _not_ meant to kiss her back. He was supposed to shove her off of him and say how much he loved Sara. Except he kissed her _back_ —and he tried reciting some poetry just before?

_Goddamn_ this whole night. She regretted spending those fifteen dollars.

Beatrice didn’t remember scurrying up the steps to McHale, or entering the lobby, or powering to the third floor. She felt the cool touch of metal on her hand, and the twist of her wrist to open the door, but her vision and consciousness flooded back to her with the sight of Sara in her pajamas and at her desk, pouring over a thick textbook and countless pages of lined paper.

“Hey,” Sara greeted her, “how was the show _?_ ”

“I kissed your boyfriend.”

Beatrice shut the door behind her and sank to the floor, with no intention of standing up or looking at Sara in the face. She buried her face into her hands, awaiting for Sara’s reaction. The agonizing three seconds stretched into to three hours, and Beatrice wasn’t sure she even wanted to hear Sara’s response.

“What?” Sara finally asked, as if she didn’t understand what was just said.

“I kissed Wirt—”

“What?!” she repeated. “Fucking _finally_!”

Beatrice’s head shot up to stare at her roommate. That’s… _not_ the response someone should have once hearing their roommate kissed their significant other. Nevertheless, Sara’s smile took up half of her face, her eyes the other half. “Oh man, I always _knew_ you’d make the first move,” Sara rambled on, giddy with an inappropriate excitement. “Wirt’s way too shy to even _think_ of going for it. But, I mean, giving the pace that you two were going at, I thought it would be until finals week before either of you finally did _something_ —”

“Sara, Wirt’s your _boyfriend_ ,” Beatrice curtailed. Maybe Sara wasn’t missing out on Thirsty Thursday just because of a test the next day.

“No he’s not,” Sara rejected.

She arched an eyebrow up at Beatrice, whose jaw released. “He’s not?” Though her voice was audible, she faltered from the sudden confession.

“No! I mean, he _was,_ for like, two months last year, but he’s not now.” Sara repositioned her chair so she could better face Beatrice, and she crouched forwards to rest her arms on her thighs. “You thought I was dating Wirt?” Her amusement trumped the astonishment.

“Yes!” It wasn’t as crazy as Sara made it sound. “You say ‘he’s a dork but I love him’ all the time!”

“Well he _is_ a dork and I _do_ love him, but that doesn’t mean I’m _dating_ him. Not _anymore_.”

Beatrice scowled. She wasn’t insane. “But he’s always with you, he’s always _here—_ ”

Sara opened her mouth to retort, but she held back. “Okay, actually, yeah...I can see why you’d think that. At least in the beginning of the semester. But I can promise you half the reason he’s always here is because it’s an excuse to see _you_.”

This was all too much to handle within the span of ten minutes. Beatrice rubbed her eyes, forgetting and not caring about the little eye makeup she wore. Her ponytail, though a little looser than when she first tied her hair back before heading to the theater, now felt tight against her scalp. She released her thick red locks from the blue hair tie and let the waves fall around her shoulders. Beatrice exhaled and rested her head against the door. Three months of living with Sara, thinking she was dating Wirt—three months of shoving away the unwarranted and unwanted feelings for some skinny, dorky hipster. And now she just found out that she could’ve had Wirt whenever she wanted! She ran a hand through her scalp to soothe herself.

“You _really_ thought we were dating?”

Before she could respond, a raucous knock on the door startled Beatrice and brought her to her feet.

“Beatrice!” Wirt’s voice called from the other side. “You forgot your umbrella!”

“Open it!” Sara whispered. Caught in a frenzy of panic and confusion, Beatrice stood still for two seconds— _one Mississippi, two Mississippi_ —to ease herself. She swung the door open and locked eyes with Wirt.

Damp and panting, presumably from running to follow her, Wirt held out her closed umbrella. She took it from him and clasped her other hand around it. “You…you left it at the lamp…lamppost,” Wirt said in heavy puffs.

“How did you get in?”

“Piz..za guy,” he breathed.    

Beatrice placed the umbrella atop the nearest raised surface—the mini fridge she and Sara shared. They stared at each other without a word passing between them. She didn’t know what to do right now. Apologize for kicking him in the shin? Kiss him again? Shut the door and curl underneath her sheets in embarrassment?

“Do you guys want me to leave?” Sara inquired from her seat at her desk.

“Yes,” Beatrice automated, but caught herself once the world left her mouth. “I mean, no. You can stay. We’ll go to the lobby.” To follow up on this, Beatrice closed the door behind her and lightly shoved Wirt further into the center of the hallway.

Save for their footsteps on tile, no noise went between the two of them. With each step, Beatrice’s stomach knotted. Right as she opened the door leading into the staircase, Wirt placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Can we stay here for a moment?” His panting had subsided, but his voice was low and soft.

Beatrice kept quiet, but she didn’t begin her descent down the stairs. Instead leaned against the staircase wall and wrinkled her nose. Someone must’ve burnt popcorn in the kitchen and brought the bag to their room; remnants of the rancid stench mixed with the dank smell of Wirt’s clothing.

“You…thought I was dating Sara.”

Beatrice nodded.

“Sara’s _not_ my girlfriend.”

“I know. She told me before you arrived.”

“We _used_ to date…”

“And you don’t anymore. She told me.” That was something she needed to discuss with Sara as soon as she returned to the room. But for the moment, Beatrice cast her eyes to the floor and curled her toes in her boots. “I’m sorry for kicking you.”

Out of reflex, Wirt stooped down to rub his shin. “Yeah, _ow_ , that hurt. No wonder you play soccer.”

It wasn’t the time or place, but she smiled at that semi-compliment.

“You actually thought Sara and I were dating?”

And, at this, Beatrice rolled her eyes. “ _Yes_!” she groaned. _Seriously,_ it wasn’t that far-fetched as they made it sound. “You were around _all the time_ , and the two of you never said otherwise.”

“Well, you never asked,” Wirt said.

Beatrice bristled. “So all that time you were just coming over—”

“Sara’s my best friend. Of course I want to hang around her.” He paused, to run a hand through his hair. “But after a while, it was to see you, too.”

“I thought I _intimidated_ you.”

“In the beginning.” Wirt stepped a little closer and reached for Beatrice’s hand. His hand was still cold from the nighttime weather and rain, but it was also soft and lithe. Beatrice kept her hand immobile in his, as if it rested in his palm, but she melted at the contact. Wirt smiled gingerly at her. “I...I like you,” he mumbled.

Beatrice glared up at him. “Even though I kicked you in the shin?”

“Yes, despite that.”

Beaming, she squeezed his hand.

“I-I like you, too.”

“See, I had mixed feelings about that. You kissed me and then kicked me.” He smirked at her, one of his few spurts of cockiness, and ruined the whole tender moment. Beatrice snatched her hand away and folded her arms in front of her chest, about to stick her tongue before cursing at him.

“Wait,” Wirt added, the smugness fading away into narrowed eyes and a frown. “If you thought Sara and I were dating, then why’d you kiss _me_?”

She should kick him again. “Physical responses to emotions are a thing. That’s a psychology thing, right? Talk to Lorna about it. Besides, I wasn’t thinking straight. It was raining, we were goofing off…”

Beatrice hadn’t noticed how Wirt was looming over her until she found herself staring at the buttons of his raincoat. Wirt was an even six feet, which was short in comparison to most of the males in her family, both immediate and extended. But his wiry physique exaggerated that height, and right now, Beatrice fought every urge not to feel like an ant staring up at a skyscraper. She glanced up at him and let her voice trail off as the goosebumps on her arms and the back of her neck rose.  

“Beatrice?”

“Yes?”

“May I kiss you again?”

She refrained from answering right away, mostly to ease her beating heart. “Yes.”

“And when I kiss you again,” _when_ , she noticed, not _if_ , “will you not kick me or cause me some other physical harm?”

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t _promise_ that, but I’ll try,” she smirked.

Wirt placed his hands on her waist, and he leaned down so that his forehead touched hers. Involuntarily, Beatrice circled her arms around his neck. With her hair unbound and hanging loose, her and Wirt’s faces were hidden behind the red curtains, their inhales and exhales combined. What was taking him so long? She might as well just go ahead and lean forwards, she was close enough—

Their lips barely grazed together when the door beside them creaked open. Wirt broke away from her and planted his hands in the pockets of his raincoat, a ruby red blush washed over his face. Beatrice couldn’t look any better; her own cheeks boiled. She watched one of the girls who lived on the same floor stomp down the staircase, pretending not to care about the two of them. Beatrice and Wirt stared at each other in silence as they waited for the footsteps to dissipate.

“Maybe this wasn’t a good place for a discussion,” Wirt suggested. “The acoustics are terrible anyways.”

“And it reeks.”

He laughed at her bluntness, but the comedy fell away with Wirt giving one of his concerned, serious looks. “Um…does this...d-does this mean _we’re_ dating now?”

“Oh _shit._ ” Beatrice covered her face with her hands.“I haven’t even considered that.”

“You _haven’t_?”

“No! I thought you and Sara were dating, _remember_?”

“Well… _do_ you want to date me?”

Oh _fuck_. In all her months of living in denial over her pining for Wirt, she forced herself to never, _ever_ think of him as a dating prospect. In Beatrice’s mind, Wirt was unavailable, and what was the point about thinking of him as her boyfriend when he was _someone else’s_?

And even then, when Beatrice first arrived to college, she never expected herself to fall for a poetic hipster-in-denial like Wirt. She dated two boys in high school. The first relationship lasted for about a month in the tenth grade, hardly a blip worth even mentioning. The second lasted for just over year and a half, beginning early in the eleventh grade; she lost her virginity to him on their one year anniversary, and it was a rather serious relationship. He broke up with her shortly after graduation on account of “a long distance relationship just won’t work,” and that “it wasn’t worth trying” (In hindsight, Beatrice realized this was an excuse for him to fool around in college without feeling bad for cheating on her.)

But both of those ex-boyfriends were nothing like Wirt. They were self-assured, sociable, mostly-athletic types. Wirt was _none_ of those. He lacked self-confidence, was a total wallflower, and Beatrice guessed Wirt hated gym class. And yet, here she was, ready to kiss him knowing that he was indeed _single_ , and he wanted to kiss her back. There was no denying she had feelings for him, not _now_ , but it never once occurred to her that she wanted to _date_ Wirt, that she wanted to _be_ with him.

“Can we put a hold on this conversation?” she requested.

“A hold? For how long?”

“Until after Thanksgiving break.”

Wirt’s eyes widened, but he remained calm and understanding. “Um, okay. After Thanksgiving. The philharmonic winter concert is that Tuesday, though. Can we talk after that? The Monday we get back, I have this really long dress rehearsal.”

Beatrice nodded. “Yes. The Wednesday after Thanksgiving break we can talk.” She needed that break to not only stuff herself with food or postpone any pre-finals assignments for the Sunday afternoon, but to also think about her and Wirt.

“Should I...should _we_ not talk to each other until then?”

“Yes. No calls, no texting, no Facebook messaging. No distractions.”

“Being away from you is a distraction of its own,” Wirt recited.

“Oh my God, I could kick you for that.”

Wirt chuckled at her half-hearted threat. He didn’t realize she wasn’t bluffing. “Okay. I’ll see you in two weeks.”

“Two weeks.”

Beatrice expected Wirt to turn on his heel and head down the stairs, but before he did, he kissed her forehead. She ducked her head to hide her second blush from Wirt, but she was able to see him sauntering down the stairs. He stopped at the half-platform.

“Oh, Beatrice?”

“Hmm?”

“You look nice…with your hair down.”

* * *

“You _seriously_ thought Wirt and I were dating?”

“Yes.”

“You never once noticed how Wirt sputters around you?”

“He’s like that all the time.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that. Whenever he’s nervous, he sputters, and he’s always nervous.” Sara chomped on her late-night Twizzlers. She had abandoned her studying, deeming this moment of Girl Talk far more important than a test on thermodynamics. “But that’s not the point. You never _once_ noticed how Wirt and I never had PDA?”

“I thought you two were not trying to make me feel like a third wheel,” Beatrice remarked. Sara raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her, but Beatrice only shrugged. “Besides, you two don’t seem like the couple to have any PDA.”

Sara snorted. “Oh, _trust_ me, Wirt’s shy and all, but he likes PDA.”

“Really?”

“Not the obnoxious, gross kind. That freaks him out. But he likes to hold hands.”

“Oh.” Though charmed by such knowledge, Sara being the one to divulge that information left a bitter aftertaste within Beatrice.

Sara, however, moved on, either unfazed or unaware of Beatrice’s small distaste. “And, c’mon, you _had_ to notice how I would constantly bail on our hangouts.”

“Well, yeah, but...wait, you were trying to set us up?”

“Oh my God, _yes!_ Halloween was supposed to be your first date. And I _purposefully_ never joined you on your lunch meetups.”

“Did Wirt ever put you up to it?”

“ _Hell no_ ,” Sara emphasized with a deep enunciated voice. “Wirt’s so shy and dorky that he won’t even tell his best friend that he has a crush on said best friend’s roommate. He’s an open book, though, so I took matters into my own hands.”

Beatrice scowled. “Am _I_ an open book?”

“You were harder to gauge at first,” Sara responded. “Like, for the first few weeks, I thought you were just being nice to him because he was my friend.”

“I thought he was your _boyfriend_ , but go on.”

Sara ignored that. “But, I don’t know, eventually I just noticed how you’d look at him, and how you just lit up whenever he was around.”

Beatrice’s frown intensified. She never thought she was _that_ obvious when it came to her feelings for _anyone_.  

“Anyways, it doesn’t matter now. All that does matter is that you think long and hard— _ha,_ that’s what she said—about whether or not you really want to have a relationship with Wirt.” Sara finished the last of her Twizzlers. “But, coming from someone who _did_ date him, I think you should.”

“About that,” Beatrice piped up. This wasn’t something she wished to know about in detail, but she needed to be discussed.

Sara picked up right away. “Oh, right, I guess I never told you about that?”

“I never asked.”

“Well, to be fair, it’s not really anything _worthwhile._ Well, it is, but not really. I don’t know, actually. He and I don’t talk about it much, anyways. It was freshman year, and we were both kinda intimidated by everything. So we just decided to lean on each other more often than usual and start dating.”

Beatrice swayed her legs over the edge of her twin mattress. “That’s it?”

“ _No_ , there’s more to it. I think that’s how it started, at least. For me, that is. Like, I always _knew_ Wirt was such a great guy, and it’s not like everyone said, ‘You two should date!’ But I was thinking since we’re such good friends, we could _try_ dating, you know? So we did. And it was…okay. I was looking for something more casual, and Wirt’s a very serious relationship kind of guy. It kinda felt like we were just really good friends who happened to kiss once in a while.”

Beatrice fiddled with a lock of her hair in the small pause Sara took to take a sip of water.

“But,” Sara began, “I also really wanted to make out with my lab partner Kat more than I wanted to make out with Wirt. And we did one afternoon after our physics lab. Earlier, I borrowed her notes for something and she came back to my room to pick them up, and right then and there we just ended up making out on my bed for a good thirty minutes. Way more action than I had with Wirt. I broke up with him as soon as she left my room.”

Even if it was just a little, a weight lightened its load on Beatrice’s shoulders. “Does Wirt know that?”

“Oh yeah, I told him maybe a month after we broke up. He was surprised, but not upset. He said he hadn’t been feeling much between us. We just work better as friends.”

“What happened to Kat?”

“We saw each other a few more times, but she ended up dropping out after the first semester. It was mostly a physical thing.”

Beatrice hugged her pillow. It was almost midnight, and her body commanded her to stay awake and listen to the stories Sara never told her. Beatrice was never in the dark about Sara’s bisexuality, but this whole story was one she never heard before.

“Look, I know it’s your decision and I can’t _make_ you, but if you want to, I really think you _should_ date Wirt.” Sara closed the untouched physics textbook sprawled on her desk. “If you’re looking for a serious, long-term kind of thing, Wirt _can_ and _will_ give that. He’s attentive and sappy.”

“I’m not worried about Wirt,” Beatrice muttered. “I’m worried about _me_. _I_ don’t know if that’s something I want. That’s why I need Thanksgiving to sort that out.”

Sara stood up from her desk and patted Beatrice’s shoulder. “And you will. You’ve got a while.” She departed the room, presumably to go to the bathroom.

Beatrice climbed underneath her sheets. When Sara returned from the bathroom, she flicked the lights out. Beatrice lied awake for another hour, or two, before waking up with her alarm a few hours later.

* * *

_She and Wirt peeked out from under the cape secluding them. The frog playing the bassoon flopped over the deck of the ferry, bumping into the patrons and slipping about, before falling overboard. “No bassoon player,” Wirt said absently. “Uh-oh.”_

_Cantankerous croaks from the frog people arose within seconds. “Hot dog, those frogs really love the bassoon!” he exclaimed._

_The noises grew louder, and the security guards were already narrowing their beady frog eyes in suspicion of the new maestro. “Oh no,” Wirt rasped, distress in his eyes and voice, “Beatrice, I’m too young to go to frog jail!”_

_Hey,” Greg chimed in from the drum he wore over his head, “why don’t you play the bassoon?_

_“That’ll get us kicked off this boat for sure,” Wirt shot down._

_But with the look of the security guards and the noise from the frogs, she couldn’t accept that as an answer. “No, Greg’s right, you should play it. Go ahead, you’ll do fine. You play instruments, right?”_

_It didn’t matter that they faced the very real possibility of being put in the “brig” or whatever the frog people used as temporary imprisonment; Wirt was all too willing to launch into a trivial discussion of how wrong she sounded. “Yeah, but bassoon and clarinet are way different. I don’t have the embouchure for bassoon. I mean the lower to middle ranges have some similarities in terms_ — _”_

_This wasn’t the time or place. She rolled her eyes at him. “Wirt, you can do it,” she assured._

_“Seriously, nobody wants to hear me play,” Wirt responded, dejected._

_“I do,” she offered, and she genuinely,_ truly _meant it. Even if they weren’t in this situation, it would be nice to hear him play music. She heard so little of it ever since she became a bluebird._

_“I do,” Greg recited as well._

_“Roooorrgh,” Greg’s frog groaned in agreement, perched on the top of Wirt’s head._

_Wirt hesitated, a clear insecurity to it all. But did it matter if he sounded awful in this critical time? “_ Wirt _,” she groused, hoping it would be the final push he needed._

_“Yeah,” he accepted, fumbling around for the unattended bassoon, “here we go…”_

_He began, and she didn’t understand what Wirt was so embarrassed about. What he played was clear and lovely, almost calming. What surprised them all, however, was Greg’s frog, who no longer spoke in croaks and ribbits, but sang in eloquent human speech. “At night, when the lake is a mirror…”_

_This was quite pleasant. The singing frog, Wirt’s bassoon-playing mixed with the instruments of the other band frogs...as odd as it all was, she found herself swaying to the music. But all this sweetness didn’t change the fact that she was leading the brothers to a life of servitude, all because of her own selfishness._

_“Hey, Beatrice,” Wirt paused in his bassoon-playing and whispered to her, “thanks for supporting my bassoonning.”_

_“Yeah,” she sighed, “you’re actually...good.”_

_“The best part is, we’re still on track to get to Adelaide’s.”_

_She looked away. “Yup, that’s great.”_

_“You don’t seem thrilled.”_

_She didn’t like how perceptive he was, let alone just how obvious she was being. “Well, I just...I don’t want you to…” she paused. She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t say it out loud to her friend. “Never mind.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can tell I really hate _The Music Man_. Half of it is because for some reason my dad loves it and constantly has to show it whenever extended family members come to visit. The other half is because it is actually a boring and annoying piece of musical theatre.
> 
> The poem Wirt recites is "She Walks in Beauty" by Lord Byron.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back! I know it has been while, but I was writing my thesis. After I finished the first draft, though, I had a week off and took the time to write this much anticipated chapter. Thank you putting up with the erratic updates; the semester is coming to a close so hopefully I will be able to update more regularly.

A long Thanksgiving break indeed.

Not _just_ because of taking time to think. Thanksgiving was always something of a chore in Beatrice’s household. A family of nine was rambunctious every day of the year, but adding aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents to the farmhouse meant dealing with more people than Beatrice ever wished. As the oldest of the children, she was often put on babysitting duty for her younger siblings and even younger cousins. It was a task she used to love because it meant getting to boss them around as she played with them. But somewhere around fifteen and sixteen, babysitting without financial incentive became a headache-inducing chore.

That, and professors didn’t seem to understand that Thanksgiving break meant a _break_.

The few times Beatrice squeezed some time to herself were late at night, when everyone else was asleep and no one would burst into her room. She worked on her two assignments due the Monday she would return to campus, and maybe read a few pages from her textbook. But many of those early hours were spent pondering over Wirt and the possibility of entering a relationship with him. Mostly just Wirt, and how nice he looked in his sweaters and pressed shirts (especially when he combed his hair, which was uncommon), and how much she wanted to kiss him again (without kicking him in the shin).

But was that even enough to want to be in a relationship? Just having someone else’s presence and company? Past experience said _no_ , but it was over a year since Beatrice was last in a serious commitment. She never even had a “casual something” in her freshman year; she was too busy trying to convince herself that she belonged at college, or too preoccupied with avoiding her hellish roommate.

But now, with a solid friend group and decent grades, a relationship with someone as gentle and sweet as Wirt (also nerdy, moody, and occasionally pretentious, but gentle and sweet nonetheless) was a real and viable prospect. Beatrice couldn’t deny how he made her feel. Wirt felt the same, if not stronger. And with the realization that he was _not_ dating her roommate, what hindered her from jumping at the chance?

The most she thought about the whole situation, however, was during the drive back to campus that Sunday. In the passenger seat while her mother drove, Beatrice stared out of the window, half-interested in the early-winter taking its toll on the landscape rushing past the pane.

“You’re awfully quiet,” her mother piped up after an hour on the road.

“Yeah,” Beatrice replied half-heartedly.

“Thinking of anything important?”

Beatrice kept quiet.

“You _can_ talk to me, you know.”

“I _knoooow_ ,” Beatrice groaned.

“But you’re not going to?”

She wasn’t planning to.

But she did anyways.

* * *

Sara returned two hours after Beatrice settled back into their shared, narrow room. She didn’t hesitate.

“ _So_ , have you made your mind up yet?”

“My break was fine, thanks, how about yours?” Beatrice folded her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow at her roommate.

Sara flung her backpack onto her bed and hoisted herself onto the mattress. “Yeah, yeah, it was fine, I stuffed myself crazy with food and watched football with my dad.” Her curious eyes leveled on Beatrice, and a smile spread itself on her mouth. “ _Soooooo_ , don’t leave me hanging! Are you gonna hit that dork?”

“I don’t know how much more pain that boy can handle. I’ve already kicked him in the shin,” Beatrice answered.

Sara rolled her eyes and frowned. “You _know_ what I mean.”

Unfortunately, Beatrice did. “I…maybe.”

“Maybe? That’s code for _yes_.”

“ _No,_ it’s code for I’m not entirely sure. But I’m willing to take things…slow.”

“Slow?”

“Yeah,” Beatrice said with a single nod. “Slow.”

“How slow are we talking here? Like, as slow as this whole semester has been? If that’s the case, you aren’t getting any until past spring break. And if you go any slower, it’ll be _next_ Thanksgiving break before you two—”

“ _Sara_ ,” Beatrice interrupted. She leveled a biting stare on Sara, intended as a caution.

And Sara was smart enough to pick up on the warning. “I’m sorry, but…well, you know how I feel about this. I know it’s your decision and you shouldn’t feel pressured, but the two of you are a good fit.”

Beatrice raised an eyebrow in disbelief. She wouldn’t deny her attraction for the beanpole nerd, but she could challenge the notion that they complemented each other. “Me and Wirt are a _good fit_?” she questioned.

Sara nodded as she replied, “Yeah. Look, I know it seems like the two of you are total opposites—”

“Because we are.”

“ _But_ ,” Sara emphasized, steeling herself for whatever Beatrice had to counter, “if you really think about it, you two aren’t _that_ different. The two of you are super stubborn.”

“Lots of people are stubborn.”

“Well _yeah_ , but…never mind, it sounded better in my head.” Sara collapsed into the cloud of blankets and pillows on her mattress and stared up at the ceiling. “All I’m saying is that it’s not as crazy as you would think. You’re into him and he’s _very_ into you. The entire ride back home was just Wirt blabbing about how much he likes you and how much he wants to date you.”

Beatrice’s cheeks enflamed at the thought of Wirt gushing about her to Sara. As if to steady the heat, her eyes drifted to a spot on the wall ahead of her. “I want to date him, too.”

Sara’s head perked up with a smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Slowly.”

Beatrice nodded. “Yes. Slowly.”

* * *

With the beginning of the semester’s last week of classes, Monday and Tuesday passed busily but uneventfully. The slew of pre-finals assignments and quizzes for the week meant more stress, which meant less sleep and more crankiness, but at this point, Beatrice expected and dealt with it. Monday, she mulled about her classes and ate lunch alone; for dinner, Sara made specialty quesadillas in McHale’s communal kitchen, a recipe she learned over the break.

“We should go to Wirt’s concert tomorrow,” Sara brought up as they ate their quesadillas off of paper plates while sitting in the lounge, with the television on for background noise.

Beatrice tensed, but she attempted to remain calm and not exhibit any of the anxiety coursing through her veins at the moment. She had been thinking of it on her own, had assumed that it was a given. To hear Sara verbally suggest it, however, was a whole separate matter. “Sure,” she mumbled before biting into her warm quesadilla.

And taking the hint, Sara said nothing more—except for a knowing smile.

* * *

Tuesday after dinner in the dining hall, the roommates trudged through the cold, nippy air to campus’s main performance auditorium. Beatrice shoved her ungloved hands as far as they could go into the pockets of her coat, and hid her nose behind the scarf her mother knitted for her as last year’s Christmas present.

After purchasing their tickets, Sara and Beatrice found seats in the middle section of the auditorium. Throngs of people—mostly parents, but Beatrice guessed some of them were townies and community members, maybe even alumni from decades before—milled along the aisles, filling unoccupied seats until hardly any remained. She and Sara engaged in idle chitchat as the clock ticked closer to the concert’s start, but their discussion on their respective schedules for finals halted when Sara peered over Beatrice’s shoulder.  “Hey there!” she called to someone else.

Beatrice turned her head to see who it was. She recognized the woman and the little boy, once again dressed as though they were going to Sunday morning church. (Definitely more appropriately dressed for a symphony concert than Beatrice was, who wore a pair of jeans so old, the seams at her inner thighs were developing small holes.)

“Sara!” Wirt’s mother greeted. “Oh, and Beatrice—what a pleasure seeing the two of you here. Kip, honey,” she motioned to a man whom Beatrice assumed was her husband, “this is Sara’s roommate, Beatrice.” She leaned a little closer to him, and Beatrice swore she heard Wirt’s mother whisper, “The girl Wirt keeps talking about.”

“Lovely to meet you,” Wirt’s father— _step_ father, she reminded herself, _Greg’s_ father—said as he stuck out his hand. Beatrice shook his hand and smiled weakly. “We have heard so much about you. Sounds like you and Sara’ve gotten along really well,” he added with a grin.

Beatrice nodded, but kept her mouth quiet. She wasn’t sure what to say. Instead, she let Sara take over the conversation with the parents, and redirected her attention to Greg. He squirmed in his stance, busting at the steams of wanting to speak to Beatrice but hindered by politeness and his parents’ watchful eyes. “Hi Greg,” she smiled. “I got your Rock Facts Rock.”

“Do you like it?”

“Of course.” It made a nice paperweight, just like Wirt had suggested, but that wasn’t the intended purpose Greg christened it with. “Here’s a Rock Fact. I like your tie.”

Greg beamed at her and twirled the pumpkin-patterned clip-on in his palm. “Thanks! I like your scarf.”

“Thank you. My mom made it for me.”

“I can see why Wirt likes you so much.”

A stone in Beatrice’s chest plummeted right into her stomach. “Right,” she said, unsure of how to respond. Greg was a little boy, not Sara or Lorna, a likeminded late-teenaged girl.

But Greg continued on. He moved closer towards her and lowered his voice, “Don’t tell Wirt I told you this because he’d _kill_ me, but he writes poetry about you.”

Somehow, that stone dropped even further into Beatrice’s gut. “He does?”

Greg nodded with enthusiasm. “Oh yeah. He keeps it on his desk in his room—the ones I know of. I’m sure he has more. There’s one with ‘For Beatrice’ at top, and another that says something about ‘red hair like flame’ and freckles, but I don’t remember what he said about the freckles.”

Beatrice pressed her lips together and wished the obvious blush on her face would fade away, but Greg’s mother placed a hand on her son’s shoulder to interrupt his tirade. “We better find our seats, sweetie. Thank God for the ‘Reserved for Family’ section.”

A disgruntled mumble escaped Greg, but he waved goodbye to Sara and Beatrice. “Maybe we can see each other after,” the boys’ mother called out over her shoulder. “In the lobby, that is, when the musicians come out.”

“Maybe,” Sara responded for the both of them. “If we see you in the crowd, we’ll come say hi.”

“Excellent! Hope you enjoy the show!”

Beatrice watched as the family moved farther down the aisle to the reserved section at the front near the pit. The thought of seeing Wirt immediately after his concert both lifted and disheartened her spirits. It would be the first time she and Wirt saw each other in person since the Thursday before Thanksgiving break—but with the added company of his family and Sara. As kind as they were, Beatrice didn’t want them around when she inevitably kissed Wirt until their breath became too thin to kiss anymore, yet they would keep kissing anyway.

But Sara distracted her for another minute or two before the house lights dimmed, and the voiceover asked everyone to turn off their electronic devices and be aware of the nearest exit in case of an emergency. Shortly after, the stage lights illuminated and the curtains rolled to the sides. One by one, the philharmonic students entered and took their seats.

She hadn’t seen him amidst the others, but once everyone was sitting with their instruments in their laps, Beatrice identified Wirt’s tall and thin figure right away. A few students sitting in front of him obscured a clear view, but his head stuck out. Beatrice stifled a giggle, the silence amongst the audience making her all too aware of every breath she inhaled and exhaled. Even though Wirt was too far away for her to make out any definite details, she recognized how flushed he looked (maybe it was just the lighting, but it was more likely a mild case of stage fright). If she straightened her back and leaned a little forwards, she saw the black bowtie he wore around his neck. Good thing he wore it with a suit, and all the other boys wore one, too, or else she would tease him relentlessly about his dorky tendencies.

(Not that the bowtie bothered her. From her limited view, he looked rather handsome in it. She imagined her fingers tugging it loose to unfasten his collar button.)

She hadn’t realized the music had begun until there was a large crescendo with…the percussion? (That sounded right—percussion. She didn’t know music.) She was too preoccupied with thinking about seeing Wirt afterwards. Maybe wearing the concert suit he wore right now, but his sweaters, suspenders, and khakis would be fine, too—he wore so many khakis, she hadn’t seen a pair of jeans since late October. Once the music registered, though, she tried to sit back in her seat and listen, to pay attention the melodies and instruments blend together. But watching others perform music in a dark room, even if it sounded magnificent and she wanted to kiss one of the clarinetists, made Beatrice’s eyelids droop and her senses less responsive. Then again, she was still having difficulty with sleeping; Thanksgiving had been better, but the last two nights she spent in her dorm brought back the reddened eyes and need for caffeine every two hours of the waking day.

The rapture of clapping startled her awake. The stage curtains closed, and the house lights turned on. “Is it over?” Beatrice asked.

“It’s only intermission,” Sara answered.

Beatrice refrained from releasing the groan in her throat.

* * *

As soon the musicians and maestro gave their bows and the curtain rolled together, Beatrice stood up from her seat. “I’m going back to the room.”

She didn’t hear Sara’s reply as she darted to the aisle and exited swiftly to the lobby before the swarm of spectators rushed out.  

Beatrice bee-lined for McHale Hall, the campus walkway empty and aglow in the night. Seeing Wirt with his family around him would be too much, pretending that neither of them were about to have an important conversation concerning their dating lives. She needed a moment alone, with no Wirt, no Sara. The cold nighttime air brushed against her cheeks as she dashed for the dorm. She had a bag of unpopped popcorn waiting to be devoured and a packet of hot chocolate she could make to melt away the chill. And the anxiety.

Wirt’s concert was over, and that meant they were going to talk. About them. About each other.

* * *

“Hey there, Busy Bea. I brought a guest.”

Beatrice, wrapped in a fuzzy blanket and her back propped against the wall, looked up from her mug of hot chocolate to see Sara standing at the doorway, with Wirt looming behind her. Her heart pulsed at a rate she wouldn’t consider human. If she wasn’t mistaken, his face lit purple as soon as he locked eyes with her.

“You left before we even got to say hi,” Sara continued on, “and Wirt’s family just left so they could make it back home for tomorrow, so…here he is.”

“Wait, Sara,” Wirt piped up as Sara pushed him forwards, “maybe this w-wasn’t a good idea, m-maybe you should stay—”

The door clicked closed, with Sara on the other side.

Wirt stood in the center of the room; from Beatrice’s perspective, huddled into the corner where her bed met the wall, somehow he appeared taller and gawkier than before. Beatrice curled her toes against her blanket and the sheets of her bed and took a lingering sip of hot chocolate. “Nice concert,” she said after her last gulp of liquidy chocolate. They were the only words she could string together that weren’t about the topic they were seconds away from discussing.

“Sara said you fell asleep.”

 _Dammit,_ Beatrice chastised herself. “It wasn’t because of the music. It was very nice. I’m just having a hard time sleeping. That’s all.”

“Right,” Wirt said, but he was off in a different universe, just like she was. “Thanks for coming though.”

“You’re welcome,” Beatrice answered.

Silence passed between them, dreadfully longer than the couple of seconds it actually was. Wirt frowned; Beatrice did as well. He stepped closer to the edge of her bed and motioned to it. “May I sit down?”

She nodded.

“I didn’t ask Sara to do this so we could talk about my concert,” he exhaled once he sat at the foot of her bed, kicking off his dress shoes, crossing his legs, and removing the suit jacket so that the white of his shirt gleamed. Beatrice would’ve teased him if it weren’t for the thickened tension between them.

Instead, she said, “I thought we agreed to talk tomorrow.”

“We did. But I really want to talk to you. We can wait until tomorrow, if you want.”

“No, now is fine,” Beatrice conceded. She placed her empty mug onto her desk and settled back into her corner.

“I was going crazy over break, and then my mom told me that she saw you and Sara in the audience, and, and...and I just have a lot that needs to be said—”

“Before you say anything,” Beatrice interrupted, removing herself from the corner she’d grown accustomed to so she was closer to Wirt. She hugged her legs to her chest. “I want to tell you what I think.” She tightened her grip on the blanket, her own security in a moment like this.

“You mean how you thought about it—about _us_?”

“Yes. It’s weird.”

Wirt tilted his head and raised an eyebrow at her. “Why’s that?”

“Because you’re not my type.”

Wirt sat back a little, his mouth agape. “Is…is this supposed to be a compliment?”

She hadn’t meant to offend him, but she wasn’t above light teasing. “I _mean_ , I didn’t think I would ever be into someone like you.”

“So…who would you have been into?” he asked meekly, his eyes cast down to his legs.

“I don’t know,” she half-lied. “Muscular farm boys who rely on athletic scholarships to get out of the middle of nowhere, but are also studying pre-med or pharmacology.” Her ex-boyfriend was that. Wirt’s scowl deepened, and she couldn’t resist the temptation to tease him further. “Or lumberjacks. Not romantic losers who wear suspenders instead of belts and recite poetry from memory.”

“Well I’m _sorry_ I’m not physically adequate or masculine enough for you,” he grumbled.

Beatrice giggled and rested a hand on his shoulder. “You know I’m teasing. Besides, you should be flattered. You’re an exception.”

With this, Wirt glanced up at her, hopeful but not too certain. “So you… _do_ want to date me?”

“Of course I do.”

“It sounded like you were trying to let my down easily.”

Beatrice rolled her eyes at him. She had to be careful with him; he took everything too seriously, as if the world was being demolished around them and he accepted his fate. Ignoring his despondency, Beatrice continued on. “At first I wasn’t sure about dating—not dating you, but dating _anyone_. I really didn’t know if I wanted to be in a relationship at all. And you didn’t seem like a possibility. I thought you were dating Sara.”

Wirt chuckled at the thought. “I still don’t get that.”

She rolled her eyes at his laughter, but at least he was in better spirits. “ _Anyways_ ,” she redirected, “yes. I want to date you.” She watched Wirt’s eyes light up and the smile on his face brighten into a large ear-to-ear grin. She could kiss him right now if she wanted to—and she _absolutely_ wanted to, especially because of how handsome he looked in his suit—but she hadn’t finished. “I want to take things slow,” she added before her life took over.

“Slow?”

She hunched over and glowered at him. “Don’t say it like that.”

“No, uh, slow is good!” Wirt squeaked, and cleared his throat as soon as the words left his mouth. “I’m fine with taking it slow. No rushing. The tortoise won the race after all, didn’t he?”

Beatrice nodded. “Right,” she agreed, but she couldn’t care less about the tortoise and the hare. She perched herself onto her knees and shins. Wirt’s eyes widened at her movement, and a giddy smile adorned her face. The warmth unraveling into her limbs propelled her to lean forwards, take his face into her hands, and press her lips against his. The abruptness prevented Wirt from responding right away, but soon enough his hands were on her ownface, returning the gesture she initiated. Maybe because it had been almost two weeks since they last kissed, or maybe because she hyped it up too much in her mind, but this gentle moment between the two of them intoxicated her in the most positive, warming, indulgent manner. Wirt was a source of heat, and right now, Beatrice boiled.

They might’ve agreed to start a new relationship slowly, but she sure as hell didn’t want this kiss to be _slow_. She inched closer to him and let her hands travel from his cheeks to his hair, messing up the combed brown locks; she moaned softly when his own hands wrapped around her back, bringing her even closer to him. _This_ was the kiss they were supposed to have a few weeks ago, delectable and earnest and not ending with her kicking his shin.

Wirt’s lips parted, and she was about to do the same, but he pulled away from her before she could. She and Sara kept their room at a warm seventy-five degrees, but she shivered from the air that filled in between them. “What’s wrong? Did I do something?” she mumbled, disappointment dripping with each syllable.

“No, i-it’s not you,” Wirt stuttered, and relief washed over Beatrice. “I just...I want…” he paused for a few seconds before kissing Beatrice’s forehead. “I better go. I don’t think Sara wants to spend the whole night out of her room.”

Beatrice rolled her eyes at him, but it wouldn’t surprise her if her cheeks were rosy from the implication. “Yeah, okay,” she said as Wirt slipped his shoes and suit jacket back on. “Will I see you tomorrow at lunch?”

Wirt smiled and nodded. “Yes.”

A wave of heat rippled from Beatrice’s chest to the rest of her body. She climbed off her bed and walked with Wirt to the hallway, down the staircase, and to the main door of the empty lobby. In the handful of times she walked side-by-side with Wirt, in never felt like this—they belong next to each other, arms occasionally brushing past each other. She hadn’t realized it until just then, but she kind of missed that feeling of belonging and companionship. Not too long ago, she never thought Wirt could provide that for her. But he did.

At the door, as they exchanged their farewells, Wirt glanced at her. His eyes sparkled and his dopey, lopsided smile occupied his face.

“What?” she asked.

“‘Are you the new person drawn to me? To begin with, take warning, I am far different from what you suppose; do you suppose you will find me in your ideal?’”

“Which dead white guy is that?”

“Walt Whitman.”

Beatrice shook her head and kissed him once more before Wirt stepped out into the early-winter nighttime.

* * *

Friday was the last day of classes for the fall semester, and even though it marked finals week’s inevitable beginning on Monday, it also lifted a huge weight off the shoulders of the student body. And instead of getting a head start on studying, many turned to other outlets for stress relief.

Like Sara, who had been invited to an engineering frat party that evening.

“You two should come!” she suggested at dinner. “You know, it’ll be your first party as a couple. A chance to show off.”

“To who? People we don’t know?” Wirt bemoaned. Sara stuck her tongue out in defiance.

“I’m with Wirt on this one,” Beatrice agreed. “You’re the only engineering major I know, and it’s too cold to do anything tonight. We’re just going to watch a movie.” She stared at her boyfriend (it was still so weird to call him that—Beatrice’s _boyfriend_ ; he no longer sat next to Sara, but next to her). “Well, _he_ insists I watch some old movie.”

Wirt’s jaw dropped in offense. “Excuse _you_. _The African Queen_ is not just _some old movie_. It’s a classic. One of Humphrey Bogart’s best.”

Sara blew bubbles into her soda with her straw. “ _Fine_ ,” she accepted fake-dejectedly. “But when I get back, you two better not be banging each other’s brains out. At least text me beforehand or put a sock on the door or something.”

She knew it was a joke, but Beatrice didn’t refrain from lightly kicking Sara underneath the table.

* * *

“Beatrice?”

“Huhmmhnph?”

A finger prodded at her side, to which Beatrice twitched and opened her groggy eyes. Her laptop was perched on her lap like it had been for the last hour or so, with a frozen close-up of an angry Katharine Hepburn on the screen. Beatrice blinked and stared up at Wirt. “Whassgoing on?” she slurred through a sleepy groan.

“You fell asleep. You were snoring.”

Beatrice sat up and reclined her back against her study pillow. Her temple felt sore—from resting her head on Wirt’s shoulder, she remembered that much. “Oh, uh…sorry.”

“Is the movie boring you?”

“No,” she admitted. From what she _had_ watched, she enjoyed it. But minutes after finding Wirt’s shoulder made a bony but oddly comfortable pillow, her eyelids drooped and she was watching the movie through narrow eye slits. “I just…this last week has been really stressful, so I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep, but that’s normal.”

Wirt kept his eyes on her, one eyebrow raised. “What?” she responded.

“Are you ticklish?”

What little sluggishness still remained in her body quickly evaporated. “Wirt, _no_ —”

It was too late—Wirt’s hands scrambled along her sides, and she laughed (albeit involuntarily) while using one hand to stop his tickling, and the other to close her laptop and guide it to safety. Wirt’s hands were too rapid, though, so Beatrice searched for somewhere ticklish on Wirt’s body. She found it at his neck, and after a minute or two of their silly fight, Beatrice pushed forwards and put a rest to it all with a kiss on Wirt’s lips. His arms fell and wrapped around her waist, tugging her closer to him. She smirked, sensing a victory for herself. His orangey sweater was soft and warm against her, like a small blanket. Kissing like this wasn’t enough, though, despite her wish that they take their relationship one day at a time—she wanted to make up for all the lost time she and Wirt could’ve been kissing. She was about to hitch a leg over his hips, but Wirt turned his face away. _Damn_ but did this kid have the worst timing.

“What’s up?” she asked, hiding her slight frustration.

“I need to talk to you. I can’t keep putting this off.”

Beatrice bit her lower lip. She would’ve asked to let it wait so they could pick up where they left off, but his eyebrows furrowed and his lips tightened into a frown, and his exhausted brown eyes leveled a gaze suggesting pertinence and urgency. “Okay,” Beatrice conceded, and she retreated to her portion of her twin-sized bed/

Wirt took a few moments to himself, taking deep breaths and closing his eyes, deep in thought. “I don’t know how much Sara has told you, but she was my first girlfriend,” he started.

“I kinda guessed that.”

“Well…wait… _hey_!”

Beatrice shrugged, but she couldn’t suppress the smug smile on her lips.

Wirt rolled his eyes and huffed before continuing. “So I’m not really familiar with how relationships work. With Sara, we were already friends, except with some handholding and kissing. But I—” he broke off and fiddled with thumbs against one another. “I’m still really new to how healthy relationships are supposed to work, but I know some things. I know honesty is key, and I want to be honest with you now.”

Beatrice said nothing, but her mind immediately branched off to the most implausible outcomes. _One testicle._ No _testicles._

“Do you remember how I said we were in the same Orientation group?”

She nodded, but truth be told it was a vague memory—the library staircase, an exchange of words she strung along. Early September was too distant for her.

“That was a lie. We weren’t in the same group. I don’t even remember everyone in my group, except maybe for one guy who was in my freshman year Biology class. The first time I ever met you was move-in day back in August.” He gazed at her. “The first time I ever met you _here_ , that is.”

“What are you—”

“Since I was fifteen, I’ve gotten these weird…dreams, I guess. I only get them when I sleep, but they’re too vivid to be dreams. They’re almost like memories.”

Beatrice stayed quiet. This conversation was going into a direction far different from one she imagined.

“Well they’re dreams about Greg and me walking through the woods, just walking and meeting people and… _creatures._ At one point we meet a town full of skeletons wearing pumpkins, and frogs who wear clothes and stand on their hind legs like humans.”

“That _sounds_ like something out of a dream,” she chided.

“But they _aren’t_. Greg has them, too. Right when I started getting mine, he had them, too. I can feel the wind, the snow…” he looked away and heaved a sigh, “the desperation.”

Her first instinct was to rub Wirt’s back and ease away the gloom, but intuition prevented Beatrice from doing so. She wasn’t sure where he was going with all of this, but she didn’t like the sound of it.

And that was when Wirt stared her square in the eye and said, “You’re in them, too.”

Beatrice’s blood chilled.

She ransacked her brain for something— _anything_ —to say in response. Instead, she only glared at him, imploring him for answers.

“It’s _you_ , but you’re a bird—a bluebird. Well, a human who was cursed into a bluebird. But you’re there, with Greg and me, in the Unknown.”

“The _unknown_?”

“The woods. That’s what they’re called. You’re there with us. You become human again at the end, with these scissors that I cut your wings with—”

“Wirt—”

“They’re _memories_ that happened before, in some weird alternate universe or timeline, I still don’t know—”

“Wirt, that’s crazy—”

“Don’t call me crazy,” Wirt grumbled at her, mild aggravation crisping the edge of his tone. “I’m not crazy. You get them, too.”

Beatrice moved away from him and pressed herself into the corner. “I don’t…what are you—”

“You have the same dreams that Greg and I have. I can tell, it’s your insomnia. You don’t want to experience them—”

She curled underneath her blanket and maneuvered back into the corner. “Wirt, you don’t know what—”

“It happened with me, too,” Wirt rambled on, “when I first started having them, I didn’t want to sleep. They can get…dark. And you’ve only now started to get them, ever since we met. It’s some kind of trigger—”

“You can’t actually believe in all of this,” Beatrice interrupted. “I mean, alternate universes? That’s insane.”

“Stop saying that,” Wirt muttered through gritted teeth. “I’m not. You know I’m right.”

“My insomnia is from stress—”

“No it’s not, and you know it’s not! You don’t want to accept that I’m right, but I _am_. I know I am and _you_ know it, too. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Beatrice’s hands tightened into fists around the edge of her blanket; she brought her legs up to her chest. “No, I don’t.”

“So the name ‘Adelaide’ means nothing to you? And you haven’t seen your French professor before, somewhere outside of class?”

She shook her head. Water lined in her corners of her eyes, although Beatrice couldn’t pinpoint why. She never cried. She reached over to grab Wirt by the shoulder and shake him. “The whole thing is crazy, Wirt—”

“Don’t call me crazy!” Wirt raised his voice, brushing her hand away. “Why don’t you stop being so closed-off and emotionless?”

She’d tried so hard to remain calm in all of this, but now she couldn’t contain herself anymore. “I am _not_ emotionless—”

“You always do this—you get detached and coldhearted, only caring about yourself and how you think, just like with Adelaide—”

“You’re not making any sense!” Beatrice retorted. “You don’t know anything about me! We met back in August. You’re the one who has this insane idea—”

“I’m _not_ insane! _I’m not crazy_!” he reiterated once more, but this time he was hollering at her, almost rabid and unthinking. “This is bullshit. You just hate being wrong,” he went on, his voice loud and furious, “just like you always have. You don’t want to admit I’m right, you just won’t listen to me but you _know_ I’m right—”

“I think you should leave.”

Her words were quiet, but firm. She crossed her arms over her chest and glowered at him. This was _not_ how she intended to spend her last Friday of the semester, and she’d give anything for them to rewind and go back to just minutes before. Wirt inhaled a deep breath and released it. She expected him to put up something of a fight, to retort or cool down and apologize.

Instead, he climbed off her bed, snatched his shoes and coat, and stormed away. The door slammed shut behind him.

* * *

_Her little bird heart dropped at the sight of Wirt and Greg entering into Adelaide’s home._ Oh no, _she thought_. No no no no nonono.

_“What’s…going on?” Wirt asked as he surveyed the interior of Adelaide’s cottage._

_“You shouldn’t be here!” she called it; it was the only thing she could think of right now, even though Adelaide stood in front of her. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She’d been so careful to make sure they were asleep, so they couldn’t follow her._

_Wirt frowned as his eyes traveled from the little bluebird to the witch. “Adelaide?”_

_“Welcome home, children,” Adelaide crooned, and with one pull of the many strings of yarn strewn about the room, the yarn trapped the boys and bound them. She wanted to avoid this; Wirt and Greg didn’t deserve this fate, but her own selfishness brought them here._

_Wirt stared up at her with broken eyes. “Beatrice, wha—”_

_“I…” she began, but found no words to explain herself entirely._

_“But…I thought we were…friends…”_

_Even though she was a bird, she was frowning on the inside, wishing she could explain the situation to them. Adelaide went on her tirade of her plan to make them her eternal servants, but she was too preoccupied with the tears in Greg’s eyes and the betrayed look on Wirt’s face. She couldn’t watch them be subjected to life of this._

_“All along you’ve been leading us to this crazy lady?”_

_She flew to the window and tugged at the latch with her beak._

_“I do as he commands,” Adelaide soliloquized, “the voice of the night, the Beast of Eternal Darkness.”_

_The window cracked open; she pulled it forwards more so that the wind could filter in._

_“What’re you doing?!” screeched Adelaide, who lunged for the window._

_“Wirt, Greg, let’s go!” she cried, but with every step Adelaide took, her body melted and steam. The black smoke blinded her as she flew, Adelaide’s wails dampening until they became nonexistent._

_She coughed away the last remainder of smoke in her throat while the soot thinned out of the room. Adelaide’s clothes laid amongst a pile of ashes. Her eyes searched for the brothers in their yarn traps, but the strings that bound them together were severed and scattered._

_“Wirt? Greg?”_

_But they were nowhere._

_“Greg! Wirt! It wasn’t what it looked like! I was just…please come back!”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it folks: the Secret Surprise is a _literal_ alternate universe. I know some of you were speculating; was it what you thought it would be?
> 
> Poetry credit goes to "Are you the new person drawn to me?" by Walt Whitman


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Huzzah! My fall semester is over, and so I can finish off this fanfic soon! I would like to forewarn that this is the penultimate chapter; I plan for chapter 7 to be the final chapter, and maybe an epilogue to close it out. Otherwise, enjoy.

“Is something wrong?” Sara asked that Sunday evening. “Wirt wasn’t around at all yesterday, and he wouldn’t answer me directly when I asked why.”

“We got in a fight,” Beatrice muttered as she tied her shoelaces.

“Already?” Sara sounded amused. Beatrice fought the urge to dart her roommate a threatening glare. Her silence must’ve been enough for Sara to realize it wasn’t a laughing matter. “About what?” she added, almost hesitant to inquire further.

“Nothing,” Beatrice grumbled. She stood up, pushed her arms into her coat, and grabbed the container of chocolate chip cookies she made yesterday evening. “I’m going to the Club Soccer potluck.”

* * *

Finals passed with little ado. Unless she had an exam, meals to eat, or some other obligation, Beatrice spent the week under her covers, curled up with textbooks, notes, and some French vocabulary flash cards. Other than the soccer potluck, she went with Lorna to the Midnight Breakfast that the dining hall hosted on Monday. Those were her only social outings for the week. Otherwise, Beatrice’s bum was planted on her mattress, with her eyes glued to text on paper.

Beatrice and Sara saw each other three times during finals week before Sara finished her finals on Wednesday and left that afternoon. Beatrice presumed Sara did most of her studying in the library or in the study rooms of McHale; Sara was rarely ever in the room. Since Sunday, Sara never brought up the topic.

And that was fine with Beatrice. She didn’t want to talk about it. It would mean _thinking_ about it, and finals were the perfect distraction. Studying geography, practicing French grammatical structures and statistics questions meant she never had to think about the words exchanged, or how upset Wirt had been.  Once or twice she considered texting him so they could meet again and talk it out, but what was there to _talk_ about? So instead, Beatrice studied almost nonstop throughout the week, and managed to do well enough on all of her finals to end the fall semester with two B’s, a B-plus, and an A-minus in her classes.

Once finals finished, however, Beatrice remained clueless on how she’d handle herself.

Her mother picked her up Friday morning, and Beatrice spent most of the car ride contemplating what she would do over the month-long break. Looking after her younger siblings and returning to her farm chores were a given. Binge-watch another television series on Netflix? Hang out with the select few high school buds she still considered her friends? Steal some alcohol from her parents’ liquor cabinet and guzzle herself senseless?

Anything to not think about Wirt.

“How did it go with you and that boy you were talking about?” her mother asked during the car ride home.

Beatrice shrugged. “Not well,” she admitted. She knew her mother expected an explanation, but Beatrice refused to give one. Maybe later, when she was ready to talk about it to someone.

Not right now, though.

Or the week after.

Or Christmas Day.

Or New Year’s.

Or the day before spring move-in.

* * *

Beatrice’s father dropped her off in front of McHale Hall with a kiss on her forehead before she departed from the car. “Don’t forget to call us every once in a while! Your mother goes crazy when she hasn’t heard from you in over a week.”

“Okay, I’ll try,” Beatrice mumbled, knowing full well she wouldn’t keep that promise. Not because she disliked her parents. She just simply forgot to call them on a weekly basis.

After retrieving her items from the backseat of the car and waving goodbye, she entered the dorm and headed for her room. _Why doesn’t this damn building have an elevator?_ she thought as she lugged her suitcase up the three flights of stairs to the third floor.

Right as she reached the third floor hallway door, however, it swung open. Startled, Beatrice stepped back and yelped.

“B-Beatrice!”

“Um, hi, Wirt,” she greeted through gritted teeth.

Wirt—still tall and skinny as ever, with his un-brushed fluff of hair—stood flat-footed with his hands shoved in the pockets of his coat. “I, uh…” he trailed off, his eyes searching for some kind of escape. “I was just helping Sara with some of her stuff. She wanted to get back to campus early.”

“That’s cool.”

“H-how was your break?”

“Super.”

“That’s good. Mine was okay.”

“Cool.”

Beatrice stared at him. She wanted him to evaporate out of her way. She wanted him to pin her against the wall and kiss her without a care for who saw them or the faint smell of paint. She wanted to go into her room, collapse onto her bed, and wish the two of them could rewind their entire predicament and start from the very beginning. From the flush of his skin and how he rubbed the back of his neck, Wirt wasn’t too keen on the current situation, either.

“Um, I’ll see you around?” he offered.

“Sure.”

She pushed past him and bee-lined for her room. Of course— _of course!_ —she had to run into him on the first day back on campus! What an excellent way to begin the semester. Beatrice gulped down the lump in the back of her throat. She wasn’t going to allow herself to cry. Not now. She did enough crying on the Friday before finals, on Christmas, on New Year’s. This semester was _not_ going to begin in tears.

Beatrice opened the door to her room and was greeted with the image of Sara perched herself on the foot of her bed, her legs dangling off the edge.

“Hey,” Beatrice said as casually as she could muster.

“You saw Wirt, didn’t you?”

“Are you gonna do this all the time? ‘Why yes, Sara, my break was lovely, and yours?’”

Sara crossed her arms over her chest. “My break was _not_ fun because I listened to Wirt whine the whole time, and he wouldn’t tell me what happened between the two of you. And _you_ never answered any of my calls or my texts, so now you’re gonna tell me _exactly_ what happened and why you two won’t even speak to each other.”

Beatrice frowned and unzipped her suitcase. “I don’t wanna talk about it. Can you respect that?”

“Usually I would, but not now. You had a whole month not to talk about it, and whatever it is, it’s got Wirt practically consumed in sorrow. Both of you are my friends and neither of you are talking.”

“Can I unpack my things first?”

“No.”

Beatrice huffed. This was a side of Sara she never saw before, and she never wanted to witness ever again. “It’s…complicated.”

“Don’t use that BS line on me.”

“But it is!” Beatrice groused. “It’s…well, it’ll sound cra—strange. I don’t know how to talk about it without sounding like I belong on a sci-fi show.”

Sara’s back stiffened and she lowered her arms, but she remained quiet, her eyes fixated on Beatrice with keen interest. Beatrice herself closed her eyes and took a deep breath before speaking.

“The Friday before finals, after dinner, we were watching a movie and all. Just normal couple stuff. But then Wirt just stopped and he decided to start… _talking_ about stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

Beatrice bit her lip. “He thinks that these dreams he has are memories for some kind of—”

“Alternate universe?” Sara finished for her, soft and almost sheepish.

Beatrice’s face fell in one fell swoop, just as her heart dropped and anchored into her gut. “So he’s talked to you about that, too?”

Sara nodded with pursed lips. “Since they started up for him. But go on. Something tells me you aren’t done talking.”

“Well, he started insinuating that I have them, too, because of my lack of sleep from last semester. I denied it—”

“But _do_ you have them?”

Beatrice said nothing. Sara eyed her.

“ _Beatrice_ , be honest.”

She nodded her head.

In response, Sara flailed her arms over her head and collapsed her back onto her mattress with a disgruntled thud. “Why would you lie to him about that?” she groaned, each syllable dripping with heavy disappointment.

“Hang on, you know about his whole alternate universe theory! Doesn’t that freak you out?”

“It did—it _does_ ,” Sara said after a weighty sigh, “but I’m not the one having these dreams or memories or whatever they are.” She craned her neck up to stare at Beatrice. “We’ll get back to this. So you lied to him and said you don’t have these dreams. Then what.”

Beatrice exhaled and scowled. “We had an argument. He kept saying how I know he’s right but I won’t admit it, and he kept raising his voice at me.” She stared at the toes of her shoes, hesitant to continue out of fear of how Sara would react. She lowered her voice to a loud whisper, “I might’ve called him crazy a few times.”

Sara shot back up and leveled a gaze on Beatrice, but not an angry glare. A calm but disappointed look. “You shouldn’t’ve done that,” she merely responded.

“I know, I _know_ ,” Beatrice mumbled. She crossed over to her side of the room and dropped onto her desk chair. “It was just…I didn’t know how to react. He starts talking about this alternate universe or whatever and mentioning how he had these dreams about me before we even met, and they were the exact same dreams that I started to have! I panicked and pushed him away.”

“It’s understandable,” Sara stated. “You didn’t know, so I doubt Wirt will hold much of a grudge against you for it. But you _should_ know that when Wirt first started talking about these dreams, his parents wanted to send him to some kind of shrink. They thought he was suffering from a mental illness. He had to fight tooth and nail for that not to happen because Wirt doesn’t have a mental illness. Well, he has mild anxiety, but he doesn’t suffer from the mental illnesses his parents thought he had.”

Beatrice’s heart sank at the thought of a younger Wirt arguing with his parents, but she pushed the thought aside to focus on her conversation with Sara. “So he started talking to you?”

Sara nodded. “Believe me, I thought it was far-fetched, too, especially since I don’t get these dreams. But Wirt isn’t a liar. He’s not one for the fanciful or making up stuff for attention. I’ve tried to support him throughout the years, even if I don’t really understand it.” She paused. “I guess there’s some merit to what he has to say. You have them, too.”

“But an alternate universe where I’m a talking _bluebird_? It’s absurd.”

Sara shrugged at her. “Maybe to us, but not to Wirt. Or Greg, for the matter, though I don’t think he exactly gets the gravity of the situation. Either way, they’re both convinced, and it’s not really my job to question them. I just listen.”

Beatrice closed her eyes and let the newfound knowledge soak in. Months of tossing and turning in her sleep because of these _dreams_ , these _memories_ of things she didn’t remember, and yet she recalled with vivid awareness. They only started when she met Wirt back in August, and she had to wonder—was he what incited them for her? If she never met Wirt, would she ever experience these memories? Why did Wirt start having them when he was fifteen? Why just him, her, and Greg?

Did he only like her because she was the bird-girl from his dreams?

Dozens of questions popped in and out of her mind, and a part of her wanted to dial his number and ask him to meet her somewhere so they could talk and sort out the whole issue.

And the other part of her deemed it better if she waited a few days so all these concepts could marinate in her mind, so she could be prepared when she _did_ ask Wirt to meet with her. Right now, she needed to unpack. She needed to make sure she had her textbooks for the new semester. She needed to think about everything. About Wirt. About herself.

* * *

“You’re avoiding him.”

“I am not.”

“Yes you are. The week is halfway over and you haven’t even seen him once.”

“How do you know that?”

Sara sent her a disapproving glare. “One, you would’ve said something. Two, _he_ would’ve said something, let alone just _stop by_ our room. Three, you two would be all over each other by now if you had.”

Beatrice grimaced and sunk into her chair. “I’m just nervous, I guess. I don’t know how to actually talk to him about all of this.”

“Just ask him to meet you somewhere, and then it will all work itself out.”

“You really believe that?”

“Where is the confident, don’t-take-shit, gets-what-she-wants Beatrice I know? Who are you and what have you done with my roommate?”

Beatrice remained quiet, but she reached for her phone and tapped a message to Wirt. _Can I see you tomorrow?_

Sara smiled. “See? Was that so hard?”

“No,” Beatrice half-lied. Typing out the message wasn’t difficult. Pressing the send button—that was the challenging part. Sara was right, though: where was the Beatrice who sometimes spoke before she thought, who stuck to her ground?

A few seconds later, Wirt replied. _Sure._

* * *

Sitting on the cold stone steps of McHale Hall’s entrance, Beatrice hid her face in her scarf to keep her nose warm from the cold dry air. She checked the time on her phone: five-twenty-eight p.m. Wirt promised to meet her at five-thirty. He was due any second now. Beatrice rocked back and forth on the top step. Students going in and out of the dorm paid no attention to her, which was fine for her. Just a girl sitting on a step, waiting for someone.

_Five-twenty-nine._

_Five-thirty._

_Five-thirty-one_.

_Five-thirty-two_.

Wirt was never late. Never. Not once in the months (or times?) knowing him. Beatrice furled her brow as she continued to wait for him. Not a single tall-and-spindly boy around.

_Five-thirty-three._

_Five-thirty-four._

“Beatrice!”

She released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Wirt?” She stood up.

“I’m sorry for being a little late. Right as I’m walking out the door, Jason _Funderberker_ felt it was a good time to do our bathroom-cleaning schedule with our suitemates—”

“Oh, um, that’s…thanks…”

She met his gaze, and they both fell silent. A girl passed them and swiped her card to open the front door.

“Did you want to get dinner?” Wirt asked.

“Yes,” Beatrice answered, stepping down to the brick walkway next to him. “H-how was break?”

“Great.”

“Yeah, uh, mine was—”

“Super?”

Beatrice stared up at him, a sheepish smile on his face. “Oh, right, we had this conversation a few days ago.”

Wirt shrugged. “It’s okay. Did you do anything fun over—”

“It’s not okay,” Beatrice interrupted. “Wirt, I…I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t know you wanted to talk now.”

“I didn’t know either, but I think we should talk now.” She grabbed a hold of his arm and pulled him to one of the nearby benches, farther from the entrance so that they wouldn’t be distracted or interrupted with the passersby. She hadn’t expected any of the ‘talking’ to happen like this, out in the cold and on an empty, grumbling stomach. She had to, though. Right now. She owed it to him, and she certainly owed it to herself.

“I’m sorry for calling you crazy. Sara told me about the stuff with your parents. I didn’t know. I wasn’t thinking.”

Wirt placed a hand on her shoulder. “Well, I’m sorry for yelling at you. I shouldn’t have, but I just…I wasn’t thinking, either.”

Beatrice held his hands in hers and stared at him in his eyes. The orange glow of the lampposts provided some light so she could see his face ( _God_ , she hated winter), but the only defining feature she made out the best was his nose. She smiled weakly, but kept the thought to herself. “But you were right about me that night.”

He glanced at her with curiosity, but said nothing.

“I lied to you.”

“What?”

“I lied to you.”

“When? About what?”

“When you first mentioned the memories. I said I didn’t know what you were talking about. But I did. I _do_. I have them, too.”

Wirt pressed his lips together in a line.

“I started having them in August, when the fall semester started. Almost right after I met you and Sara, actually. I thought they were weird dreams, at first. Really vivid, weird dreams. I didn’t understand why I was dreaming about you and Greg a lot, but I was, and I just didn’t question it. But when you mentioned that you have them, I freaked out. I didn’t want to believe you. An alternate universe, or some kind of reincarnation…it’s all cliché sci-fi baloney, right?”

He nodded. “It could be.”

“I’m sorry for lying to you. You were right—I didn’t want you to be _right_ about all of this.”

Wirt let go of her hands and pulled her in for a reassuring embrace. Beatrice’s face collided into the chest of his coat, and he stroked her ponytail. “I’m still sorry for lashing out at you. And it’s…it’s okay. I don’t mind that you lied about it, not much. I’d be freaked out, too.”

“It’s still hard to believe, though,” she muffled.

“I know it is, and it’s not like we have any way of _really_ understanding what they are and why we have them. Besides you and Greg, I only know one other person who has them—”

Beatrice pulled away from his grasp. “There’s another person?”

“Yeah.”

“Do I know them? Do they know _me_?”

“Sort of. I’m sure you’ve had memories with him, but I don’t think you’ve seen him here.”

“He _goes_ here?”

“He teaches here. Dr. Bosch, my advisor? He’s the Woodsman.”

Unsure of how she was supposed to feel, Beatrice stayed calm (in spite of her cold and runny nose). “So he recognized you, and you recognized him?” she inquired.

“Last year. I took a class with him freshman year fall semester, and one day I just stopped in his office hours to ask him if he knew who I was. He said he did, and he knew about Greg. I requested him to be my advisor so he and I could talk about it more often.” Wirt reached for one of Beatrice’s hands. “Maybe you can meet him, too?”

Now Beatrice’s heart skipped a beat or two before beating a tad faster than before. The hairs on her neck stood up. “I-I don’t know…”

“He has office hours tomorrow until four. We don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I think it’ll help. He can’t provide many answers, but it’s nice to talk to someone who understands what’s going on.”

Beatrice grinned and squeezed his hand. “It is.” And she had _plenty_ of questions.

She wasn’t going to ask all of them right now, though.

“Wirt?”

“Hmm?”

“Are we…do you still…” What was _wrong_ with her? She never started sentences without intending to finish them. She never stuttered. “Are we still dating?”

“Do _you_ wanna still date?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I’d like to.”

“I spent every day of break wanting to call you, but I was afraid you wouldn’t’ve picked up your phone.”

“I would’ve,” Beatrice admitted, both to him and to herself.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.” She leaned forward and kissed him on his mouth, the only warmth she experienced in the last twenty minutes. Wirt held her in his arms and kissed her back. It was all too familiar and comforting—the smell of mixed nuts (and maybe sweat), the sweet and soft touch of his lips on hers, how his nose poked into her face. Right now she cared only for him and how happy he made her.

After a few seconds of kissing on the bench, Wirt pulled away. “D-do you still wanna get dinner?”

“Sure.” Beatrice almost forgot about her gurgling stomach begging for food, but Wirt’s suggestion instantly made her insides rumble from the hunger pangs. She stood up from the bench, and Wirt followed suit. He reached for her hand and laced their gloved fingers together. He didn’t ask for permission, but he already had it.

* * *

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Beatrice eyed the open door at the end of the office hallway. She sat on one of the armchairs in the waiting area for students or other visitors, but she and Wirt were the only two people in the small area. She heard the muffled voices of Dr. Bosch and another student down the hallway. All the other English professors’ offices were closed, the sign of campus on Friday after two p.m.

“I want to,” Beatrice affirmed with a nod of her head. “I need some answers. Maybe it will help me sleep better at night.”

“You told me you were sleeping better.”

“Better than before, but not _well_.”

Wirt squeezed her hand for reassurance and said nothing as they waited for Dr. Bosch to finish talking to the student in his office. Beatrice read each of the posters about graduate school programs in English literature as a means of keeping herself from staring at the clock’s ticking hands.

“Do you think we can convince Sara to drive us to that diner later today?” she asked.

“It’s never too hard to convince Sara _not_ to eat in the dining hall,” Wirt answered.

They smiled at each other and waited for another minute or two before the other student walked out of Dr. Bosch’s office and out of the office suite. Beatrice could feel the blood in her veins coursing faster through her body.

“Bea, are you _absolutely_ sure? We don’t have to do this today. He has other office hours—”

“No,” she interjected. “It’s…it’s better if I do this now.”

She hardly remembered the few steps to Dr. Bosch’s door, but Beatrice couldn’t forget Wirt knocking on his door and the man at the desk who looked up at him. She recognized that face: gray hair, brown eyes with small bags underneath them, wrinkles around his mouth and in the corners of his eyes. What little doubt Beatrice had had vanished: the man before her was the Woodsman in her dreams.

“Hi, Dr. Bosch,” Wirt greeted.

“Wirt, come in and take a seat.” Dr. Bosch turned his attention to Beatrice. “I’m assuming this is your friend?”

Beatrice nodded. “I’m…I’m…” she stood frozen at the threshold of his office, too dumbstruck to move and take a seat next to Wirt, too perplexed to even say her name.

“Beatrice,” Dr. Bosch finished for her. She shouldn’t have been surprised, but Beatrice’s eyes opened regardless. Maybe she would sit down after all.

“I don’t mean to startle you, but—as you know, Wirt—I’ve been well-acquainted with the two of you for quite some time, now. Perhaps for about fifteen years now,” Dr. Bosch continued. He kept his eyes—kindly and warm, like a grandfather’s—on Beatrice. “I’ve been having these memories ever since my daughter was born.”

“Does she have them, too?” Beatrice blurted.

Dr. Bosch smiled knowingly and nodded. “She only started receiving them when she was eleven years old, shortly after her mother died.” He sat back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “Wirt told me you have questions for me?”

“I do,” she replied, reaching over to take a hold of Wirt’s hand for support, “but I don’t know where to begin—”

“Then perhaps I’ll start from the beginning of what I know,” Dr. Bosch commenced. “These dreams, these _memories_ of us, they’re not coincidental. For fifteen years and counting, I’ve tried to come up with plausible solutions as to why I’m having them, why _we’re_ having them. I didn’t know anyone who did until my daughter turned eleven, and she came running into my room one night because of a nightmare. Her nightmare was mine. Then I met you, Wirt, and we’ve tried to think about it.”

Dr. Bosch paused in his thinking. “I’ve come to understand a few things. Not everyone in these memories we share also has them. I’ve met a few people in the last fifteen years whom I’d seen many times when I went to sleep, but when I tried to approach them, they didn’t understand because they didn’t have them. They—the memories, that is—are selective of whom can remember.”

“Do you know why?”

“I’m afraid not. Until I meet more people who do remember, I can’t pinpoint any patterns. But I have noticed that something _incites_ these memories. For me, it was the birth of my daughter. For her, it was the death of her mother.” He leveled a gaze on Wirt. “For you, it was starting your second year in high school, which was the same time your brother turned a certain age and began receiving them as well. And for you—” he turned to Beatrice once more, “it was meeting Wirt. They’re different, but they all mean something for each of us.”

Beatrice remained still as she listened. Wirt squeezed her hand.

“I don’t know if everyone on this planet is part of something grander, something that so few of us seem to be aware of. Is this some alternate universe, and we’re witnessing the cracks between time and space? Or are we just all going delusional? And why _us_? I don’t know if I’ll ever find those answers. I don’t think we can.”

Beatrice inhaled a deep breath and exhaled it through her nose. “I don’t like them.”

“The memories?” Dr. Bosch asked.

“I hate them,” she continued. “I’m not a nice person, or bird, or whatever. I’m mean to my family and I’m mean to…” she stared at Wirt out of the corner of her eye. “I hate this alternate universe or whatever. I’m separated from my family and I’m selfish.”

“And I willingly turn a blind eye to evil for my own selfish needs,” Dr. Bosch countered. “Wherever they come from, whatever they represent, they’re not ‘nice.’ They can be depressing. I think that’s why when we first start having these memories, we can’t sleep. I only took one psychology class in my undergrad experience, but I think we don’t want to experience all the devastation that comes with them.”

“It still happens,” Wirt piped up. “Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night all sweaty, and I can’t fall asleep.”

Dr. Bosch nodded in understanding. “The best we can do is remind ourselves that if it ever were a reality, then it isn’t anymore.”

* * *

Sometime later, they stepped out of Dr. Bosch’s office.

“Are you okay?” Wirt asked.

Beatrice took Wirt’s hand in hers and smiled. “I will be.”

* * *

_She spent so long searching for them, and it took all her might to convince the Fish to help her bring Wirt to the tree where her family inhabited ever since the curse. The sight of Greg slowly turning into an Edelwood tree, Wirt facing the Beast in a manner that no one—let alone Wirt—ever thought to do. He handed the lantern over to the Woodsman, picked up the ax, and hacked at the Edelwood root that held Greg captive. She watched as Wirt hoisted his little brother on his back._

_This was it. This was the end._

_“Wirt—”_

_“Come with us,” he blurted._

_She wanted to. She did. From their stories, she understood that they came from some faraway place, somewhere special, a place without curses and Beasts Maybe if she went with them, she would no longer be a bluebird. She could stay friends with the two brothers who entered her life and changed it for good. And maybe,_ just maybe _, she and Wirt would be a little more than friends._

_But she couldn’t go with them. She knew that well enough._

_“I…I gotta go home, too. Admit to my family it’s my fault that they’re bluebirds.”_

_She looked down to the snow below them, but Wirt cleared his throat and disturbed her thoughts. He was holding something in his hand and offering it to her._

_He was holding Adelaide’s scissors._

_“What?” It was more of a reaction than an actual question._

_“The scissors that’ll make your family human again.”_

_“You had them all along?”_

_“Well…I-I used them to escape Adelaide, and then-then I…” he paused. “Y-yeah, I was sorta mad at you.”_

_Was she supposed to be upset with him? She couldn’t be even if she wanted to. He had held onto them, and he was giving them to her. Did birds cry? She never thought so, and yet hot tears were dripping out of the corners of her eyes. “Oh you…” she flew towards him with her wings as far outstretched as she could. “You wonderful mistake of nature!”_


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the wait, but it's time to bring this story to a close. I've also included the epilogue as part of the update.
> 
> Note that this chapter is more "M-rated," particularly at the end.

The winter raged throughout January and February before thawing out in March, and the spring entered blissfully in April as finals loomed on the horizon. Beatrice quickly fell into a steady groove between her academics, her commitment to club soccer and other clubs, and the time she spent with Lorna, Sara, and Wirt. For once, Beatrice was experiencing college in a way most others did. She had friends. She did well in her classes. She wasn’t cooped up in her room during the weekends.

Sophomore year outshone freshman year with little competition.

Since returning for the semester, Wirt was almost always at Beatrice’s side, holding her hand or combing his fingers through her usual ponytail. He was more often in Beatrice and Sara’s room than in his own—for a while, part of it was because the elusive roommate Jason Funderberker caught the flu, and Wirt wanted to stay out of contact as much as possible. In the last month and a half, Beatrice grew used to having a serious boyfriend again. The only time the two were separated were during classes, their respective extracurriculars, and when they slept.

Spring break was its own challenge—definitely for Wirt, and Beatrice wouldn’t admit it out loud, but for her, too. The Friday before break officially began, as she waited for her own parents to pick her up, Beatrice said goodbye to her roommate and boyfriend in the parking lot where Sara parked her truck.

“We’ll stay in touch every day,” Wirt assured.

“I know. That’s why we have phones.”

“And it’s not like I go out. I only go where Sara takes me.”

“Do you seriously think I don’t know that?”

Wirt rubbed his neck. “I just want to reassure you…”

Beatrice rolled her eyes and lightly punched him in the arm before embracing him, her head resting against his chest. Wirt stroked her hair.

“Ugh, you guys, it’s literally one week,” Sara groaned from the driver’s seat, her hands placed on the steering wheel. She glared at Wirt. “You’re not going off to war for an indefinite time.”

“I don’t think you even physically qualify for any branch of the military,” Beatrice teased. Wirt wrinkled his face, but she smoothed the skin with a kiss on the long and narrow bridge of his nose. In turn, he wrapped his hands around her waist and kissed her mouth. She melted with him as he gingerly pressed her back against the cool metal of Sara’s truck.

_Hoonnnnnnk_. Startled, Wirt jumped off of her. Beatrice’s face burned, and she kept her eyes on her feet.

“Hey! No making out in, on, or near the truck!” Sara shouted. “We have to leave soon if we wanna avoid the beltway traffic!”

“R-right,” Wirt stuttered. Beatrice exchanged a sheepish smile with him as he climbed into the passenger seat of the truck.

“Have a good break, you guys,” Beatrice wished to them. She waved as they drove out of the parking lot and onto the road. Once the truck was out of her sight, she chilled.

A week later when Sara and Wirt returned back to campus a few hours after she had, Beatrice willingly accepted the gangly and warm embrace of her boyfriend.

* * *

Beatrice swung her legs back and forth against the brick platform next to the stairs leading into Cornish Hall. It was an early Friday afternoon in mid-April, when the pleasant weather beckoned students and faculty alike to ignore weekend assignments, projects, and the incoming threat of finals. It didn’t matter that the clouds were rolling in and various weather reports predicted a massive storm later in the evening. Everyone brimmed with a joy that only good weather could bring.

Students filed out of the glass doors promptly at one-fifty, chattering and swearing and desperate for a third or fourth cup of caffeine to make it through one more class for the day. Beatrice searched among the moving bodies for a tall and thin boy with messy brown hair. She saw him at breakfast earlier that day, and her last class of the day ended at twelve-fifty. She spotted him right as he walked out of the doors, making his way down the stone steps to the bicycle rack. Beatrice hopped off her makeshift seating and approached him with a smile on her face.

“Oh, hi,” Wirt greeted her. “What’s up?”

“Sara’s going on a date tonight.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She texted me earlier. It’s with this girl in her physics class.”

“So she won’t be joining us for nugget night?”

“No, but since it’s just the two of us tonight—”

“What about Lorna?”

“She’s going on some field trip for a class and won’t be back until very late,” Beatrice clarified. She reached out to rub a hand on Wirt’s upper arm, clad in a light cardigan. He must’ve been burning up in the seventy-degree weather. “Well, since it’s just the two of us, maybe we could go off-campus for dinner?”

Wirt smiled, but Beatrice sensed the nervousness quaking through him. He had nothing to worry about, so why was he acting as if it were an important, life-changing decision meant to propel him into adulthood? “Uh, s-sure. Did you have a place in mind?”

“Nah. We can just go to the diner. We haven’t been there in a while.”

They walked towards McHale and Beatrice’s room, discussing their classes and odd stuff they heard throughout the day. In the room, Sara lounged in her bed, her laptop blasting the music of a girl rock group. When the couple walked through the door, Sara jumped up and pushed Wirt out of the room.

“Sorry Wirt, I need to talk to Beatrice about girl stuff!”

“How long will that take?” Wirt called from the hallway.

“Not long! Take a stroll in the hallway!” Sara yelled back, but she turned her attentions to Beatrice instantaneously. “Ok, so, that date I have tonight?” she asked in a low voice, not quite a whisper.

Beatrice nodded. “Yes? You texted me maybe an hour ago.”

“Well, I kinda need to kick you out of the room tonight.”

Beatrice frowned in confusion, but Sara’s implication resonated a second later. “ _Oh_ , uh…um. Are you sure?”

“Well, no, but I’ll text you in case I have to.”

“What happened to a sock on the door?”

“A text is more efficient.”

“Yeah, but…assuming you _do_ send me this text, where am I supposed to sleep tonight?”

Sara raised an eyebrow at her. “Bea, you have a boyfriend now.”

Beatrice tensed at the suggestion. She’d been in Wirt’s dorm before, but only in the first floor lounge as she waited for him. He spent nearly all his free time in her and Sara’s room, and usually left around nine-thirty or ten. They’d always been careful when sneaking in a quick make-out session when Sara wasn’t in the room, and once in a while they took lazy afternoon naps in her bed, but what Sara was implying was something else entirely.

“I, uh…we aren’t there yet.”

Her roommate smirked, but the accompanying noise was almost a snort. “Oh, please, I’m not saying you two need to…” she trailed off, but her smile remained intact on her face. “Wirt’s not gonna try anything with you. And if he does…oh, what the hell am I saying? He won’t.” Sara paused and chuckled. “If he does, it’ll be hilarious. Not as hilarious as the first time he got a boner, but—”

Her eyes widened and she clamped a hand over her mouth, but it was enough for Beatrice to catch.

“You know Wirt’s first boner story?”

Sara shook her head furiously.

“Yes you do! Tell me!”

“I can’t. He promised me to secrecy.”

Beatrice crossed her arms over her chest. “Well you just broke that promise anyway. Tell me or I’ll clam jam you all of tonight.”

Sara’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “ _Fine_ , but you can’t tell him I told you. I was on an eight-year streak keeping this secret.” She eyed the closed door and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Basically all throughout elementary and middle school, Wirt came over after school because my sister would babysit us. So one time in the sixth grade, she wanted to talk to one of her boyfriends on the phone, and she put in a movie for us to watch. Except my parents don’t really buy DVDs, and nothing good was on TV except for an ABC Family afternoon showing of _The Princess Diaries_ —”

“Oh no,” Beatrice muttered.

Sara nodded solemnly. “Oh _yes_. We were maybe three-quarters of the way done when Wirt started yelling ‘I’m dying!’ I looked over and was really confused why there was this bump in his pants. My sister came in and she just _knew_ , so she sent him to the bathroom and told him to think about dead puppies or something equally unsettling. I remember she told his mom about it, and she must’ve told my parents, too. The very next day I got ‘The Talk.’”

Beatrice bit her lip to stifle back the laughter rising within her. The challenge rivaled that of a Macroeconomics final she took back in her first semester in college.

“You can’t tell him _any_ of this!” Sara demanded.

“Oh, don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”

“And now you can’t clam jam me! So don’t even think of being funny and walking in on us.”

* * *

After dinner, Wirt suggested that they browse in the nearby used bookstore for a while. The wind had picked up, but the predicted rain still had yet to fall from the clouds above. Beatrice received the text from Sara as Wirt purchased a novel he thought Greg might enjoy for his upcoming birthday.

_Don’t come over!!!!_

Beatrice breathed in and clasped onto Wirt’s hand when he finished his purchase and they stepped out of the bookstore. “Where next?” he asked.

“Can we head back to your room? The weather’s going sour.”

Wirt stopped in his tracks. “M-my room? Are you sure? There’s nothing to do in my room—”

“We can make out.”

“Well yeah…” he shuffled his foot in front of him.

“Do you _not_ want to make out with me?” she arched an eyebrow at him.

He paused to stare at her. “I want nothing more than to taste the wine of your lips—”

She playfully shoved him away. “ _Blegh_ , never mind, I don’t wanna make out with _you_ , not when you still say corny poetry shit like _that_.” An instinct compelled her to check her phone for time. “We have to catch the bus in five minutes.”

Wirt sidled beside her and intertwined his spidery fingers with her own smaller ones. “We can go back to my room, if you want. Jason Funderberker is doing something with his frat tonight, so he won’t bother us.”

“Then why were you so shifty?”

“Because you’ve never been to my room before.”

“Which is very weird because we’ve been dating for a few months now.”

“There’s no reason to go over to my room. Jason Funderberker is usually there, while you and Sara are in McHale.”

A set of dark clouds far in the distant lit up; a crack of thunder drummed seconds after. “Let’s just get to the bus first,” Beatrice mumbled.

* * *

The third floor of Wallis Hall was, along with the second floor, boys-only accommodation. As such, the third floor reeked of sweat, pizza, and Axe Body Spray. Beatrice gagged once she stepped into the hallway, the odor wafted into her nose. “Eugh. Does it smell like this all the time?”

Wirt shrugged. “It’s not too bad once you get used to it. And your floor doesn’t smell like roses, by the way. It smells like wood polish and disinfectant.”

“Ugh, it wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the shit ton of Axe I can smell. _Please_ tell me you don’t wear Axe, let alone drench yourself in it.”

Wirt’s room, 302, was right at the staircase entrance. The nametags _Wirt_ and _Jason_ taped to the wall were pieces of green construction paper cut to look like mountains. He unlocked the latch and twisted the doorknob. “I don’t wear Axe. I’m more of an Old Spice man myself,” he joked.

Beatrice rolled her eyes. Her father wore Old Spice. She knew that scent well enough to know Wirt didn’t wear Old Spice. Which was a good thing; if Wirt wore Old Spice, then it would be a constant reminder of her father, and that was not the image she wanted whenever she was with Wirt. Instead, Wirt smelled like assorted nuts—cashews, peanuts, walnuts, macadamias—and herbal tea.

The door opened, and Beatrice ushered herself in right as a pack of boys from two doors to the left exited into the hallway. She hoped none of them saw her, though she knew she had no reason to think of them at all. Wirt probably didn’t even talk to them. Shaking off the thought of whatever implications these random boys thought, she studied the room as Wirt flicked on the switch.

From the way Wirt acted and dressed (save for his uncombed hair), Beatrice anticipated Wirt’s side of the room to be neat and tidy, with every object having its own place, the bed made with crisp sheets, the desk clear and orderly. From the way Wirt spoke about the unseen Jason Funderberker, Beatrice estimated Jason Funderberker’s side of the room to be a pigsty, with used and empty cups of Ramen noodles scattered over the floor and under the bed, both clean and dirty laundry strewn about, not an inch of desk space visible.

She saw what she expected. One half of the room was polished and clean. The other was not a pigsty, but it _was_ disorderly. Stacks of textbooks, normal books, and paper on the desk, used and unwashed mugs on the windowsill and on top of the drawer, shoes tucked into inconvenient spots. There was no Jason Funderberker in the room, though. And Wirt didn’t plop himself onto the neat bed. He walked over to the bed with crumpled-up sheets, and promptly made the bed in front of her. “S-sorry. I wasn’t expecting company.” He laughed—a small, nervous laugh.

“I always pegged you to be the neat freak,” Beatrice teased.

“I’m not always this messy. It’s only when I’ve got a lot on my plate when I start to not care about appearances so much.”

“It _is_ April,” Beatrice played along. “The November of the spring semester, when professors have no mercy and dump all their projects and essays and tests at the same time.”

Wirt finished with the sheets and turned to face Beatrice. “Do you want some tea?”

“No thanks.”

“Okay.”

They stood; Wirt at the edge of his bed, Beatrice at the center of the room, feet planted on the brown shag carpet. They stared at each other in the prolonged silence. Impulsive itches pranced over Beatrice’s shoulders and neck. She grabbed her braid and pulled it over her shoulder, stroking the pleat and twisting her fingers around the endpoint. Because it was only now that she realized it.

_I’m in Wirt’s room_.

No wonder he had been so nervous about it.

Wirt didn’t look too confident, either. He scratched his head and darted his eyes to other areas of the room. “So, uh…um…do you wanna listen to some music?”

On impulse, Beatrice nodded.

“Okay.” Wirt turned to his dresser, a cassette player perched at the top and hidden underneath a dirty blue t-shirt. Without taking direction from Wirt, Beatrice walked over to his bed—an extra-long mattress, she noted, to accommodate his barely-above-six-feet height—and carefully plopped onto it. She watched as Wirt fumbled through a shoebox, one which contained several cassette tapes, before choosing one and popping it into the deck. The retro rock sounds of the Beatles filled the room and lightened the heaviness between the two of them.

“Cassette tapes?”

“I thought you knew about them.”

“I know they’re practically obsolete, and yet you have some right here, right now.” She grinned at him. “More definitive proof that you are a nerdy hipster—”

“I’m not a hipster,” Wirt interrupted.

“I know. That’s why I say it. It riles you up.”

Wirt strode over to his bed and plopped on the edge. She wasn’t sure if it was unspoken invitation for her to join him. Where did all this nervousness come from? _She_ was the one who suggested they go to his room to make out. It sounded innocent enough (PG-13 innocent, at least). Except, judging from Sara’s text, she was supposed to stay here _all night_ , and they were _alone_. She wanted to kiss him silly, but what would happen after? Or even _during_? What made this moment so different from that one Friday night last semester?

“Do you wanna watch a movie?” Wirt asked.

“Sure,” Beatrice responded all-too-quickly. “But you just put music on.”

He jumped up to turn off the cassette player, and they situated themselves on the bed with Wirt’s laptop to watch a movie on Netflix. It was a safe option, but twenty minutes into the movie, Beatrice was too wrapped up in her own thoughts to pay attention to the action on-screen. She and Wirt _always_ watched movies, with Sara in or out of the room. Rarely were they ever alone.

And if Sara planned to get some action tonight, Beatrice wanted a little for herself, too.

She tapped the spacebar of Wirt’s laptop. “Hey, what’s--” he protested.

“I don’t wanna watch a movie.”

Her boyfriend stared back at her, bewilderment and confusion in his eyes. “Okay…what do you want to do?”

She pushed away his laptop to a safe corner of the bed and smiled. “I wanna make out, like I said before.”

Beatrice didn’t allow for him respond. She straddled herself on Wirt’s lap, knees pressed into the sheets and mattress of his extra-long twin bed, and against his hips. Wirt’s eyes widened at her position, and the rosy pink she’d grown familiar with in the past few months crept up his neck to his cheeks. Despite her own nervousness (amplified heartrate, the bubbling in her stomach), Beatrice’s satisfaction also tugged at her body language. She smirked at him and leaned forwards until the tips of their noses grazed together. The wall behind Wirt impeded his attempt to shrink away.

“What’s wrong?” Beatrice asked as she pulled away from him. Fear consumed her grin.

“N-nothing,” Wirt mumbled.

“If nothing’s wrong, you’d at least put your hands on me or something.” She reached for his wrists and guided his palms to her waist. Wirt’s blush intensified from a delicate pink to a beet red. “And then I do this,” she continued, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “See?”

Wirt said nothing.

“Hey, I’m trying my hardest to make out with you and if you don’t want to, that’s fine, but _tell_ me. Don’t just sit there like a potato sack.”

“I want to.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Wirt bit his lip. “I don’t want _you_ to feel like you have to do something you don’t want to.”

Beatrice rolled her eyes. She did that a lot with him, she noticed.“I’m _in your lap_.”

“But you don’t _have_ to be, if you don’t want to.”

“I _clearly_ want to!”

“Yes, but—”

“Oh my God, just shut up,” she interrupted, and shoved her lips onto his. Wirt stayed solid and unmoving, either from the startle, his own anxiety, or both—but right before Beatrice could move away to ask what his deal was, Wirt’s hands tightened on her waist and pulled her closer to him.

She lost track of the time as they kissed. The months of practice with Wirt made every touch and motion incredible and…gentle, strangely. This boy whom she once held in contempt, whom she once nearly traded off to a witch—he was different now, and yet the same all at once. It was peculiar to think of the memories as a truth, as events that happened to her long ago, but talking to Wirt and Dr. Bosch about them made her realize how much she remembered, for lack of a better word. Maybe that was what made her affection for Wirt unlike her previous relationships. He held an understanding of her a select few others would ever comprehend.

He also happened to be a _really_ good kisser.

Somewhere in the fuzzy distance, someone had opened a door. For a split second, Beatrice dismissed it as one of Wirt’s suitemates entering the shared bathroom.

“Oh, uh, sorry—”

Beatrice practically flew off of Wirt’s lap and curled her legs up to her chest to hide her reddened cheeks, if not her own self. A short young man was at the threshold, a folded, dripping umbrella gripped in his hands.

“J-J-Jason!” Wirt stuttered. “Wh-what’re you doing here?” His ears were inflamed, redder than Beatrice’s coppery hair.

“I forgot my wallet,” Jason— _Jason Funderberker_ , Beatrice realized—replied with a nasal lugubriousness. “I, uh…I didn’t know you were having company, I’m sorry. You must be Beatrice.”

“Yeah,” she said from behind her knees.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you. Wirt talks about you a lot.” Jason Funderberker fumbled for something on his desk and shoved it in his pocket. “Ok, I’m heading back to the frat house. I’m probably going to stay there tonight, too…it’s pretty stormy out there.”

“Okay, see you,” Wirt called to him, but Jason Funderberker zipped out of the door without any hesitation. “I’m _so_ sorry,” he apologized once the door closed. “I should’ve locked the door, or asked him—”

Beatrice released her grip on her legs and sighed. She didn’t want to dwell on their embarrassment any more. “That’s Jason Funderberker?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“He seems nice.”

Wirt raised an eyebrow. “What? Jason Funderberker? _Nice_?”

“Yeah.” A grin quirked on her lips. “What’s so bad about him? He keeps his stuff clean, from what I can see, and he was courteous.”

Wirt folded his arms across his chest and reclined against the wall. “You don’t know Jason Funderberker like Sara and I do. He’s… _snooty._ ”

“And _you_ aren’t?”

Wirt scoffed, but he didn’t rebuke her. Instead he propped himself to his knees and peeked through the blinds of the window. “Oh, he wasn’t kidding. It looks like a hurricane out there.”

Beatrice looked out of the window herself. It was easier to hear the rain pitter-pattering at full-force than to see it through the window. A flash of lightning, with a crackle of thunder not even a second after, illuminated some of the scene behind the windowpane.

“Maybe you should stay over tonight.”

She glanced at him. “You don’t want me getting drenched in the rain?”

“Well, if it lets up soon, then yeah, I suppose you can go back if you want.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “But, uh…it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up, and McHale is on the opposite side of campus.”

In an attempt to keep her teasing manner above all else, Beatrice planted her hands on her hips and tilted her head with a sly smile. “Wirt, is this all some elaborate scheme to get me in your bed?”

“ _No_!” Wirt squeaked. “N-n-no, I’m not going to try—no, uh, it’s for your wellbeing.”

Beatrice shoved aside her own anxieties and giggled. “You make it too easy to pull your leg.”

“You can sleep in Jason Funderberker’s bed—”

“I don’t think he’d appreciate that.”

Wirt’s lips pursed. “Well I don’t want you sleeping on the floor. That’s poor hospitality.”

“If I’m gonna be sleeping here tonight—” and given that Sara explicitly said for her not to come back to the room, “wouldn’t it make sense that I sleep with you in your bed?” She cringed at herself for the unintended connotations, but perhaps tonight was a stepping stone to another level of their relationship.

The Adam’s apple on Wirt’s throat bobbed up and down. “Yeah…it’s a twin, though.”

“So?” She sounded far more confident than she was.

“It wouldn’t be comfortable.”

“These mattresses aren’t comfortable to begin with. I have a mattress topper on mine.” She poked at the bedsheets. “I think it would be fine if I stayed.”

“Are you sure?”

Beatrice shoved lightly on his shoulders and curled next to him. “ _Yes_. Can we pick up where we left off?”

* * *

“ _Greg_ …”

Beatrice’s eyes fluttered open, greeted by the black of the room. Outside, rain pummeled to the ground. This wasn’t her room. Her heart froze for a second of panic until she realized where she was. Wirt’s room. She was in Wirt’s bed. He slept behind her, wedged between her body and the wall and window, his back to hers.

“ _Greg._ ”

She craned her neck to look at her boyfriend. He trembled in his sleep.

“ _Greg…oh no…Greg!_ ”

Beatrice shifted in her limited space and shook him awake with a grasp on his arm. “Wirt. _Wirt_.”

“Hhhmm?”

“You were talking in your sleep. You were dreaming.”

“Oh,” Wirt mumbled. “Sorry. It was—”

“The memories?”

He nodded.

“It was the part where you lost Greg, wasn’t it?”

He nodded again. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I know,” she murmured. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

“I haven’t had that one in a while,” Wirt said as he rolled onto his back. “It resurfaces sometimes when I least expect it.”

Beatrice reached for one of his hands and squeezed it as reassurance. She understood well. “Can I tell you something?” she inquired.

“I don’t know, can you?” Wirt joked.

“Ugh. Stop being pretentious.”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“Remember how I lied about having the memories?” She didn’t wait for a response from Wirt. “There’s another reason why. I was afraid.”

His expression solidified. “Afraid of what?”

“I thought maybe you only liked me because I had been Beatrice the Bluebird, not because I am me right now.”

Wirt touched her face and brushed away the loose locks of bed-hair. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” Beatrice frowned. “You knew who I was.”

Well, I was just surprised to meet you, as you. And then I started to like you.” Wirt brought the hand holding his to his mouth so he could kiss its palm. “ _You_. Not bluebird you. Beatrice, in front of me,” he smiled, “ _in my bed with me_ —”

“You’re a dork.” She rolled her eyes.

“And you’re Beatrice, just as I love you.”

The quiet around them silenced even more. Beatrice was certain she couldn’t hear the rain outside, just the thrumming of her heart and her blood in her ears.

“You love me?”

Wirt stayed silent for a second or two, but he nodded once the initial shock subsided. “Yes. I love you.”

Beatrice’s heart swelled. This night was full of surprises, apparently. Wirt loved her? On one hand, it didn’t surprise her that he said it. But it did surprise her that he said it to _her,_ and _now_ of all times. She burned in the heavy pair of cotton pajamas Wirt had let her borrow for the night.

“I love you, too,” she purred, both a confession to Wirt and herself. “You’re taller and handsomer and you play old school mixtapes for me.” She cozied next to him, her back pressed into his chest, his arm draped over her waist. She closed her eyes and breathed in unison with Wirt, but Beatrice’s mind ran laps with her thoughts. _Wirt loves me_. _Me_.  

An undiscernible amount of time had passed when a hand brushed lazily against her chest. “Way to cop a feel,” she snorted, and turned onto her back to face Wirt.

Awake, he snatched his hand away. Even in the dark of his room, Beatrice saw his face darken in color. “I-I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t mean to, it was an accident, and—”

But she pressed her index finger to his mouth and smiled. “Hey, c’mon now, I’m only kidding,” she said. She knew well enough it was a mistake— _Wirt’s not gonna try anything with you_ , Sara’s voice reminded her—but nevertheless, it was an opportune moment for some cheekiness, as always. He was too sweet for his own good, and to reward him for it, she kissed the tip of his nose. “They’re just boobs,” she added with nonchalance. “You can touch them if you want.”

“I can?” he asked in disbelief.

“Well, not all the time. Like, don’t do it in public. And if we’re alone, don’t just lunge for them—”

“No need to be crude,” Wirt derided.

“How is lunging crude?” Beatrice snapped, and ruffled his hair as a reminder she wasn’t serious. “But, you know, if we’re ever making out or something, you’re welcome to touch my boobs.”

“Stop saying that.”

“Boobs?”

“Yes.”

She leaned in to his ear. “ _Booooooooooobs_.”

“ _Beatrice_ ,” he whined.

“Do you want me to say ‘jugs?’ Wirt, you’re welcome to touch my jugs.”

Wirt pouted and rolled over to face the wall. Beatrice giggled and reached over to spoon him. She honked his nose and laughed again when he turned back around to face her.

“Ignoring you clearly doesn’t work. What was that for?”

“I’m not a good big spoon. You have to be the big spoon because you’re taller than me.”

“Remember, there used to be a time when I was shorter than you.”

Beatrice’s lips quirked into a crooked smile as she entertained the thought of the exactly six-foot Wirt shorter than her. The image eluded her, but only until the memories of past flashed through her mind. A shorter Wirt meant a baby-faced Wirt and an even smaller, pudgier Greg, a Wirt and a Greg whom she betrayed. Her smile dissolved at the distant-but-real memory, but she refused to let this banter, and the newfound mood, dissipate as well. She sat up and crossed her legs.

“You can touch them now, if you want.”

Wirt sat up as well. “Huh?” he breathed, one of his more inarticulate replies. “Why would I want that?”

“Maybe because _I_ want you to.”

“Oh.”

They sat in the silence. She waited for Wirt to reach out and cup one of her breasts, but he kept his hands in his lap, with no sign of moving toward her. But she wasn’t about to let go of whatever they’d just latched onto, and she took initiative. It might’ve been better to start out easing Wirt into second base, but in this early morning delirium, neither of them were thinking too straight. She unbuttoned Wirt’s borrowed pajama top and let the fabric fall off her shoulders—a relief from the hot fabric—exposing her entire upper body to Wirt. She didn’t bother to catch a glimpse of Wirt’s face, but she made a guess. His gaze burned into her skin, and though it was a gaze she wanted, she couldn’t subdue the slight uncomfortableness of it all.

“Take yours off, too,” she demanded right as she thought of it.

“What?”

“Take your shirt off,” she commanded once more. “It’s not fair that I’m topless and you’re not.”

“But I don’t have a chest like yours.”

“You’re really not gonna say ‘boobs,’ are you?” she jabbed once more.

Wirt scowled at her, but he obeyed and unbuttoned his own sleepshirt. “There’s not much to look at,” he mumbled as he slid his arms out of the sleeves and tossed the shirt over the edge of the bed. Beatrice straightened her spine and studied Wirt’s torso. In one regard, Wirt was right. He was thin and wiry, hardly worth putting on a calendar, but she didn’t care about that. His exposed skin was another metaphorical layer peeled away, and how beautiful it was. Her head went lightheaded and her cheeks warmed at the sight of some dark fuzz at the bottom of his abdomen, peeking over the band of his pajama pants.

_Now is not the time for that,_ she chastised herself.

Climbing back on task, Beatrice reached for one of Wirt’s hands and guided it to her chest. Their flesh burned, yet the touch of his palm on her breast was cool. And gentle. Her heart skipped a beat at the first split-second skin met skin, but soon enough, the actual touch no longer felt foreign. She let go of his hand and pulled his entire body closer to hers. Beatrice kissed him and moved backwards until her back met sheets, and Wirt had followed her each step of the way. One’s bare skin against another’s exposed flesh was a phenomenal sensation all of its own. Beatrice wished to forget many things, from this past and the other one, but the pressure of Wirt against her with little barrier between was not one of them. And yet—

“You’re supposed to _fondle_ me,” Beatrice pulled away from Wirt’s mouth.

Wirt jerked upwards. “Am I not doing that?”

She laughed. “Hardly. It’s like you’re tuning an old station wagon’s radio or something.”

Wirt frowned at her. “I’ve never done this before,” he groaned, but Beatrice rolled her eyes and met his lips with hers once more. Worked up on sleep deprivation and adrenaline, they fell into a pattern of grasping and kissing one another. He loved her, and she loved him.

_Oh man_ did she love him, this nerdy beanpole who had touched her life—or _lives_ —for good.


	8. Epilogue

Beatrice opened her eyes, expecting the ceiling of her bedroom to be staring back at her. Instead, she saw darkness.

She gathered herself to her feet. The darkness stretched in all directions, but she could see her hand stretched out before her. “Hello?” she called out into the space, but she received an echo of her own voice.

Maybe she should’ve been frightened and worried, knowing that she was somewhere she didn’t recognize, separated from her family once again. And yet, she was confused about her whereabouts and why she was in this abyss, but she wasn’t terrified.

For now.

A light flicked far off in the distance. She stepped towards it, unsure of why it called to her. It was farther than she anticipated, and several times, she wondered if she would ever reach the only brightness in the black. Just yesterday, she played with her younger siblings while her father worked in the mill and her mother baked a cake “just because.” Her dog ran around with them with a wagging tail and doggy smiles. Then after dinner and her nightly reading, Beatrice went to sleep. Now she was here, alone, but not lonely.

Not yet.

The light grew as she moved closer to it, and Beatrice repeated another “hello.” She heard a few groans from where the light was. “Is someone there?” she bellowed, now running into the light until it enveloped her, glowing orange and yellow, like a benign fire. She turned her face to see an old man reclined against a wall—were there even walls? She leaned down to him and placed a hand on one of his shoulders. “Are you okay, sir?”

The elderly face gazed up at her, eyes squinting and analyzing. “Who…who are you?” he asked.

“I’m Beatrice,” she asserted. “And you? Who are you?”

“Beatrice?” the man repeated. “Beatrice, is that really you?”

The redhead’s eyebrows crossed in bewilderment. “Yes,” she responded warily.

The old man struggled to smile, but his eyes sparkled. “I always wondered how you looked. Greg and I only ever saw you as a bird.”

Beatrice’s jaw fought to drop and gape, but she consciously reminded herself to keep her lips closed so as not to come across as rude. “Wirt? You’re Wirt? But you’re so—” she was about to say _old_ , but stopped herself immediately, racing to think of a different, more polite word to describe the situation. “You don’t look the way I remember you.”

But the man continued to smile, and then she saw it in his eyes. She would never forget Wirt’s mahogany eyes, and how they flecked gold when he was excited or happy. The hooded lids, the wrinkles, the bags, and the circles around them could never hide those beautiful, poetic eyes. Beatrice returned the grin.

The elderly Wirt touched her face, the pads of his fingers soft and cold against her own warm skin. “You haven’t changed.”

She smirked at him. “Of course I have. I’m not a bird anymore.”

“But you look the way I thought you would’ve,” Wirt responded, brushing his thumbs against the sides of her nose to her cheekbones. “The red hair explains your attitude.”

“Hey!” she exclaimed in offense, but in truth it didn’t bother her. Wirt removed his hands. Beatrice stared directly at him, and noticed that the shock of silver hair atop his head was darkening, and the loose skin on his face growing tauter.

“Is Greg okay?” she questioned.

Wirt nodded. “He’ll always be okay.”

“Tell me about what happened after you left. Don’t leave anything out.”

She learned about how he returned from the Unknown, changed and determined to be more active in his life, how he dated Sara for a while but eventually they broke up and remained good friends, how he went off to college and spent years studying to become a literature professor, and wrote a few poetry collections. He told her about Greg growing older, but never losing his optimism, even as he became a teenager and in adulthood, became an elementary school teacher. The two brothers had gotten married, and had families, and traveled, and experienced their tragedies.

When Wirt finished, he had shed even more years. Right now, he was just old enough to be her father, but his hair was back to the familiar brown, and the few creases of his face only lining in the corners of his eyes. “What about you? What were you up to?”

Realization slapped her. Wirt, and Greg, grew old, and lived full lives. She hadn’t. She was still sixteen, just as her youngest brother was still four. The seasons passed, and no day was ever the same as those preceding, and she frolicked with her siblings, and her parents chided her about finding a suitor appropriate for marriage—but she was still sixteen, and she never found a suitor, never got married, never did _anything_ that could remotely compare to what Wirt and Greg accomplished since she last saw them. Why did Wirt and Greg grow to be old men with careers, families, and experiences, but Beatrice was still as old as when she threw rocks at the bluebird? She had several memories from her early childhood, like the blanket she liked to sleep with, and when her dog was a puppy, and when her other seven siblings were born, and yet life sort of stopped after sixteen. Her seventeenth birthday loomed in the air, with promises of what she could expect for presents, but it never got closer.

“I…I don’t know,” she confessed, but she wasn’t ready to tell Wirt about her perplexities. He was rapidly growing younger now, probably in his mid to early twenties. A warmth originated in her chest and spread throughout her body, causing her stomach to somersault. The Wirt she knew was baby-faced and adorable-looking, like her puppy. The Wirt before her was attractive—not the kind that made anyone melt at first glance, but subtler, unconventional. Crooked nose and big ears aside, there was slight definition around his cheeks and jaw. Beatrice speculated that maybe he was taller, too, though it was hard to tell while he sat and she rested on her knees.

Wirt brought his hands back to her face once more, his large, square hands now rough against her skin. If he saw the red on her face, Beatrice didn’t care.

“We always thought about you,” Wirt said, “ _I_ always thought about you, and the Unknown, and if you were able to find your family.”

“I never stopped thinking about you and Greg, either,” she admitted. She spent her days gazing out her window, reminiscing about those days with the brothers. Once, when she went to the town’s market, she heard a musician play the bassoon, and it flooded her memory of the time on the frog ferry. She replayed those memories over and over, good and bad, until she drifted off to sleep at night. Even if her life stalled at sixteen, Wirt and Greg had changed it for sure.

Beatrice gazed upon Wirt’s face once more. He was back to being the Wirt of her memories, a fifteen-year-old boy who was slightly shorter than her, silly-looking. She clasped her hand around his wrist, exhilarated and nervous all at once. Maybe it was a dream? No, this was happening for real, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to experience her body’s reactions to Wirt, or feel his hand against her face. She couldn’t describe what she felt at this moment, or anything else, really, but she liked being here with him. No, she didn’t like it. She loved it. Their faces were so close that, if she wanted to, she could lean down a little and press her—

“Wirt,” a disembodied, masculine voice startled her. They dropped their hands and Beatrice pulled back. “Beatrice,” the voice continued. It was a melodic and soothing tenor, fit for a vocalist. Maybe she’d heard it before. Beatrice darted her eyes around the space, looking for the source, but she saw nothing.

“I’ve elected not to show my form,” the male voice furthered, “but you have seen me before.”

“You’re…you’re not the Beast, are you?” Wirt shyly asked.

“No, I am not, though I understand your concern. I am a friend, a dear friend, and I feel as though I have failed the two of you.”

Wirt and Beatrice exchanged stares of confusion, but the male—maybe a man?—appeared to not have paid attention to this, that is, if he could see them.

“I cannot reveal much to you, but I will tell you what I can. I, along with many others, are storytellers. Most of these storytellers are rigid and know exactly how their stories end, but I’ve always been more experimental. I never had a plan, but I always wrote these epics and added things along the way. Many times have I written myself into corners and had to find ways to bring my personages out of them. And, I’m afraid that’s what’s happened with the two of you.”

“What are you talking about?” Beatrice grumbled. This sounded like a lot of nonsense.

“Your stories were never meant to intersect, but I suppose I got carried away with yours, Wirt. And Greg’s, I suppose. And yours, Beatrice—I always felt I had done you and your family wrong, but we storytellers also have to pay attention to the events of others. So I created a grand epic, one that hadn’t happened before, just for those for whom I was responsible, but I realized what’d happened. What I’d created for the two of you, it was only natural that... and I had to set it straight. Otherwise, I would’ve been defying the very laws of nature, and that is not what my task is.”

Beatrice listened out of curiosity despite the foolishness of it all.

“At the time I thought I was doing right, and I guess I was, on some level. I’d done my duty, but I think I made a mistake, long, long ago.” The voice paused once more. “I can’t reverse what has been written. It’s been done, and it will affect others involved. I _can_ , however, start a new story, a new chance.”

“I don’t understand,” Beatrice snapped. Couldn’t this figure just leave her alone with her friend? That was all she wanted—this space, and this time, for as long as it could possibly last before she had to return to her family.

She was about to voice all of these concerns, but when she opened her mouth, Wirt’s voice took over. “I do.”

Beatrice glared at him, puzzled, but Wirt was unabashed. He looked like the teenaged boy she once knew, but he still possessed the wisdom of his seventy or eighty-year-old self.

“I figured you would, Wirt.”

“What does he mean?” Beatrice demanded of Wirt, but the boy only laced a hand of hers into his.

“It means I’ll see you again.” He turned to nothing in particular. “Isn’t that right?”

“Of course,” the figure replied.

Before Beatrice could pry Wirt for answers, the amber glow of light turned into a dewy night time blue, as if it were moonlight. Wirt let go of her hand. “Wirt?”

Where he had sat was now nothing. “Wirt!” she yelped aloud, standing and running frantically to search for him. Except there was no one, and nothing. Tears rolled down her cheeks, her heart beating so fast she was afraid it would literally jump out of her chest and kill her on the spot. Sitting down in this void, Beatrice curled into a ball and rested her forehead against her knees, developing a stuffy pocket of air between her legs and her chest.

She’d lost him again.

A breeze gently pressed itself against Beatrice. She looked up to see a hand extended towards her, the rest of the body masked by the dark. “Wirt?” she whispered, but she knew this wasn’t Wirt.

“You’ll see him again,” the voice from earlier called out to her.

Curious, Beatrice accepted the hand in front of her. Once more on the soles of her feet, she walked towards a different light, a green one. Her heart filled with anticipation and drained of worry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This reincarnation/college AU has finished. Thank you so much for your patience with the uneven updates, and thank you for your readership!


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